Berlioz - Dance and Minuet from "La Damnation de Faust"

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

1. Dance of the Sylphs.
2. Minuet of the Will-o'-the-Wisps

Baltimore Symphony conducted by David Zinman

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Berlioz
• ballet
• france
• romantic
• orchestra

[FigaroFigaroFoofoo]

Sorry to have used the word "preposterous," that was overkill. But the version here is indeed routine and unimaginative, and conducted by a time-beater (a pejorative term). You should identify the conductor, orchestra, and source. One of the banes of YouTube is the nonchalant encouragement of the theft of intellectual property, i.e. uploading commercial recordings. At least be open about it and tell us who the conductor is.

[bartje11]

@FigaroFigaroFoofoo The problem is that I sometimes use old recordings, and usually I write down the performers, orchestra, and background. I missed a few out of my thousands of up-loads. If you look at my Tutorial of Gregorian, organum, motet etc, etc, you can see that I spend a lot of time of making a quality product. At least be recognize my effort instead of pointing out where I "failed". My channel is anything else but nonchalant. Check it out!

[bartje11]

@FigaroFigaroFoofoo I will try to find the names of conductor and orchestra. In my memory it was a quite wellknown one too. I think London Philharmonic, an English Orchestra for sure.

[FigaroFigaroFoofoo]

Leopold Stokowski, with his inimitable peculiar genius for gussying up the sound with various microphone, platform placement, sound editing and other machinations even before stereo, made a magical recording of this piece in the prehistoric LP era. It used to appear on RCA LM 9029 if memory serves. The version here is preposterously boring, one-gaited, and one-dimensional next to Stokowski's ca. 1950 truly ethereal, truly sylph-like transfiguration of Berlioz's score.

[bartje11]

@FigaroFigaroFoofoo Hey thanks for your suggestions. You are a very critical person. I listen as it comes to me. I like this version that's why I up-loaded it. That there are better versions out there......well, it would make up-loading a tedious business, always finding the best..... sigh, what a preposterously boring task that would be!! I get tired just thinking about it.

[BRexxors]

This minuet is one of the most beautiful pieces I've seen performed life (Kimmel Center this past May). Berlioz created a true masterpiece.

[BRexxors]

@ggguzman It is fairly well-documented that Saint-Saens parodied this piece in the Elephant. Saint-Saens referenced Dance of the Sylphs, not the Minuet.

[JupiterIV]

@ggguzman I hate the site. What I know of musical history, comes from hours of research, either through arranging the original, reading many different books on the subject (a personal favorite is by one William Goulding), and by my own realization. Besides, the first forty seconds here are the same as 0:40 through 0:54 in the Elephant.

[ggguzman]

@JupiterIV i think its more 2:28 - x . the beginning doesnt sound like the elephant. you just looked it up on wikipedia and played smartass on here, right? ;)

[Raff365]

@JupiterIV That's the point. It was a musical joke. Just like how the theme from Midsummer Night's Dream Scherzo is in The Elephant too.