Gramophone Awards
2020
Finalist - Orchestral

Record Review
2nd November 2019
Disc of the Week

Gramophone Magazine
December 2019
Recording of the Month

Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Berlioz: Les Francs-juges Overture, Op. 3

Drawing on various themes dear to the early Romantic movement of the 1820s, the Symphonie Fantastique turned the rules of a classical symphony on their head - to better serve Berlioz’s intentions.

This new reading by the ensemble Les Siècles is based on a close study of the composer’s autograph score and benefits from an intimate familiarity with period instruments, which here include the church bells of his hometown, La Côte-Saint-André.

The Fantastique includes passages from an early operatic effort he left unfinished: Les Francs-Juges - a piece François-Xavier Roth deems worthy of being placed alongside Berlioz’s more famous symphonic works we cherish today.

"This superb recording further confirms, if it were necessary, that performing such music with contemporary instruments, but strings and no vibrato anywhere is far more than an exercise in scholarship. What the result may lack in weight and density is more than made up for by the gain in clarity and élan. François-Xavier Roth is particularly attentive to the latter, not stinting on the sforzandos."