A vibrant yet intimate account
Colin Davis (conductor)
Soloists; Tenebrae, London Symphony Orchestra LSO0606 2SACD
It is in terms of this vivid quality that Colin Davis’s third recording of the piece scores particularly highly. A devoted interpreter of the composer’s music, of which he was certainly the greatest champion in his day, Davis undertook his final Berlioz cycle as the London Symphony Orchestra’s music director – a post he held from 1995-2006.
By then he had already made two recordings of the piece – the first in 1960, with the Goldsborough Orchestra and soloists including Elsie Morrison, Peter Pears and John Cameron (Decca); and the second in 1976 with the LSO and principals including Janet Baker, Eric Tappy and Jules Bastin (Philips). Both of these have much to recommend them, but the result of a lifetime’s experience of the score and the impetus of a live recording in the Barbican Hall give this final version from 2006 particular electricity.
Colin Davis discovers an authentic rustic quality in the ‘Shepherds’ Farewell’
Davis brings lightness and lucidity to Berlioz’s score – ‘it’s very delicate chamber music as a whole’, he once said – but his performance also reflects the work’s operatic or even (as Davis also suggested) cinematic quality, aided by Yann Beuron’s crisp, native French-speaking Narrator, while the small scene between Beuron’s Centurion and Peter Rose’s Polydorus is unusually striking.
Matthew Rose supplies a dark-souled Herod – an individual at the very end of his tether, sombre in expression. Karen Cargill defines Mary with impeccable steadiness and tonal warmth, while William Dazeley responds with a Joseph of equivalent quality and Peter Rose evokes the hospitable Ishmaelite Father in the final scene with a broad generosity of tone.
The luxurious choir is Tenebrae, whose thorough musicianship and ample yet varied tone form an ideal combination; Davis also discovers an authentic rustic quality to complement the choral richness of the famous ‘Shepherds’ Farewell’.
Throughout the performance conductor and orchestra enter enthusiastically into the characteristically Berlioz’s distinctive, subtle and complex soundworld, with its rich palette of carefully selected colours and a fineness of detail that rewards focussed listening.
While there’s never any sense of hurry in his interpretation, Davis nonetheless always manages to keep the score on the move, even in the delightful playfulness of the trio for two flutes and harp in the final scene: this is a point when – in the wrong hands – the score can seem to sag. Colin Davis’s are very much the right hands.