Hector Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust
This live recording was made at the Royal Albert Hall during one of London's famous Promenade Concert seasons in 1989. Sir Georg Solti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a magnificent performance of Berlioz's concert cantata. This feast of Berlioz launched Solti's farewell tour with the orchestra he had directed for twenty years and was described by The Times as "the unsurpassable culmination of two decades of music-making...one that summarized all that has been most admirable about Solti's long reign in Chicago." "Like reading the book by flashes of lightning" was how one writer described the relationship of Berlioz to Goethe in this 'Dramatic Legend' and with soloists of such greatness as that of Sophie Von Otter, Keith Lewis, Jose Van Dam and Peter Rose, lightning is certainly how this new release affects the listener - bright, brilliant and full of excitement.