Hector Berlioz, France’s greatest Romantic composer, exemplifies the spirit of his age – yet his genius was also ahead of its time. Reflecting his colourful life, his music is astonishing for its originality and ambition, and for orchestration of groundbreaking brilliance. This, the first-ever complete Berlioz edition, comprises carefully selected recordings and even includes works completely new to the catalogue. The accompanying booklet, lavishly illustrated, contains a fascinating commentary from Berlioz biographer David Cairns, whose words bring the composer’s music still more vividly to life.

Stern’s well known strengths in Brahms, as evidenced in his studio recordings, are reprised here. He plays with a communicative classicism that embraces romanticised rubati - which elongates but never breaks the line - and which vests the music sometimes with a heartbreaking sense of pathos…The orchestra remains rather bluff…But never mind, it’s Stern’s show and Wöss accompanies admirably.

French composer and pianist Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) wrote five symphonies; however, only one of them, the Third “Organ” Symphony, became at all popular. Even so, its popularity is so immense, it doesn’t matter that the others have found relatively little favor. They’re still interesting, but quite overshadowed by their big brother. It’s good to have them all together in one package if for no other reason than curiosity’s sake. Who knows; a person familiar only with the Third might soon find a new favorite among the others.

Unlike some of the old RCA and Columbia Records classical works on LP, the DGG performances are excellent for getting the dynamics as realistic as possible, and this is an excellent example of this. Lalo I believe was French but with Spanish ancestry, I presume that is why he was paired with Bizet. But I find their styles of composition are not alike. Lalo loves to use various tempos of 3, either waltz type tempos or 6/8, but what I find interesting is that his music can at times be very fiery, probably due to the Spanish influence. This is displayed in many of the pieces in CD#2, and I've not found another composer who does this so effectively. He also is a master of orchestral color, using castanets, cymbals, and other percussion perfectly.