Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. - George Norrington, London Classical PLayers - sound recording reviews

National Review, Sept 1, 1989 by Ralph de Toledano

THE BERLIOZ Symphonie Fantastique, like the Harold in haly and the Enfance du Christ, is the kind of composition that grows with repeated playing. There seem to be voices within voices which call out differently at the summons of different conductors ang orchestras. But Roger Norrington's with the London Classical Players (Angel-EMI CDC 7 49541 2) is the most exciting and fulfilling Fantastique

I have yet heard-and perhaps the closest to what Berlioz himself heard from the podium. For the London Classical Players not only play instruments of Berlioz's time, they also are arranged on the platform in the manner Berlioz wanted, and this makes a difference in what we hear and how we hear it. But it is Norrington's reading that seizes us, for he gets to the gut of the

score as none other, I would suggest, has. It is easy to understand why there is something of a Norrington vogue on both sides of the Atlantic.