# symphony fantastique - funeral bells



## david johnson

i've noticed that in the fantastique recordings i've had, only ormandy/philly uses deep pitched bells in the finale. he uses them in both the sony and the later rca recordings. i prefer it that way and wonder what other conductors do this?

dj


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## Joachim Raff

Hello guys, I didn't want to start a new thread but I'm doing a bit of a survey on the type of bells used in this piece.
I have listened to a quite a few recordings but the bells are a deal breaker for my No.1 favourite recording. 
I want a recording that has a *Church Tenor (Deep/Funeral) bell *in the finale movement.
I only need recommendations that can satisfy this criteria.


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## Allegro Con Brio

I have mixed feelings on the Gardiner recording (mainly due to the super dry acoustic) but he has the deepest, richest, most resounding bells I’ve heard in the finale.


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## Simplicissimus

I own three CD recordings of the Berlioz _Symphonie fantastique_ and I've just listened to the last movement of each with an ear toward the bells.

- Munch/Boston SO, 1954, RCA Living Stereo: two bells, one pretty high pitched and the other lower, but not like a really low church bell.
- Paray/Detroit SO, 1959, Mercury Living Presence: as with Munch, but low bell is a little lower, still not a really deep church bell.
- Ozawa/Boston SO, 1973, Deutsche Grammophon: high, tinkly bell, sounds like only one.

Listened for reference to the Gardiner/ORR that ACB mentioned. None of the bells in my three recordings are as deep as that. Well, this was fun.


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## mbhaub

The Maazel recording on Telarc uses the real thing piped in from a church not far from Severance Hall. For my taste, it's the best sound on any recording, and it's a terrific performance to boot! If you want to hear something really different, find the old Mitropolous recording on Columbia with the NYPO. He opts for what's in Berlioz' score: pianos playing the bell part.


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## Knorf

Certainly, I like the pianos playing the bells part much more than the very common chintzy solution using tubular bells.


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## Gray Bean

The 2nd Karajan has deep bells....yes, Maazel is good!


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## Joachim Raff

mbhaub said:


> old Mitropolous recording on Columbia with the NYPO. He opts for what's in Berlioz' score: pianos playing the bell part.


Score probably reflects the logistics of having a funeral bell installed for the performance when Berlioz composed the thing. The whole finale movement just sounds silly with little weedy bells.


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## Joachim Raff

Gray Bean said:


> The 2nd Karajan has deep bells....yes, Maazel is good!


That is the one in my mind. A mighty performance as well


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## Joachim Raff

Knorf said:


> Certainly, I like the pianos playing the bells part much more than the very common chintzy solution using tubular bells.


Jos van Immerseel version sounded like a Piano. In my opinion its ghastly.


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## Guest

Joachim Raff said:


> Hello guys, I didn't want to start a new thread but I'm doing a bit of a survey on the type of bells used in this piece.
> I have listened to a quite a few recordings but the bells are a deal breaker for my No.1 favourite recording.
> I want a recording that has a *Church Tenor (Deep/Funeral) bell *in the finale movement.
> I only need recommendations that can satisfy this criteria.


Have you listened to R3s Record Review?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tmzbh



> Stephen Johnson considers the available recordings of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique


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## Knorf

Joachim Raff said:


> Jos van Immerseel version sounded like a Piano. In my opinion its ghastly.


He uses several, and ghastly is the point. I think it's absolutely perfect, if you can't install multiple-ton church bells for the performance. And it's what Berlioz explicitly requested. Tubular bells are just wrong.

Performances that attempt to ennoble this music are _really_ missing the point.


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## Gray Bean

Joachim Raff said:


> That is the one in my mind. A mighty performance as well


By your screen name you must love Raff!!! I just ordered the new box set of symphonies. I don't know his music at all.. Any advice?


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## Joachim Raff

Gray Bean said:


> By your screen name you must love Raff!!! I just ordered the new box set of symphonies. I don't know his music at all.. Any advice?


I have sent you a private message about Raff. Don't want to clog the thread up with another subject


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## Gray Bean

Knorf said:


> He uses several, and ghastly is the point. I think it's absolutely perfect, if you can't install multiple-ton church bells for the performance. And it's what Berlioz explicitly requested. Tubular bells are just wrong.
> 
> Performances that attempt to ennoble this music are _really_ missing the point.


Well said!!!!!!


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## Guest

Knorf said:


> And it's what Berlioz explicitly requested.


Where do we find what he explicitly requested? Is it just what's written on the score?


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## Enthusiast

Personally, I have not been convinced that van Immerseel's piano chords work that well but it is interesting to hear them as a solution with some history. But Roth with his band, Les Siècles, uses fine sounding bells (are they really church bells?) very effectively in his relatively recent recording, a recording that has already become something of a benchmark for me.


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## perdido34

Gardiner's and Maazel's (Telarc) bells top my list.

In the last few years, the Pittsburgh Symphony bought a massive set of church chimes. Unfortunately, these were not in their hands when Janowski made his excellent Pentatone recording there. I'm hoping that somebody we will have a Honeck recording using those bells. I heard them in Heinz Hall during a performance of Mahler 2, and they completely overwhelmed the orchestra and organ at the end!


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## Knorf

MacLeod said:


> Where do we find what he explicitly requested? Is it just what's written on the score?


Yes, indeed. One the first page of the last movement, p. 98, Berlioz wrote in a footnote: 
"If 2 bells are not available which are large enough to produce one of the 3 Cs and one of the 3 Gs as written, it is better to use the piano-fortes. In such event, the bell-part must be played with double-octaves as written." Also, the bells are supposed to be backstage, another indication that is not always followed.

There is evidence that the solution using pianos is what was often used in Berlioz's day, since church bells that sound at the correct pitch weigh several tons each. (There is contemporary criticism and correspondence that refers to the pianos.)

A number of top-tier modern orchestras now have church bells that are large enough, mounted on wheeled stands to be portable, and have stages that can support the weight, but this was problematic in Berlioz's day. Today, this is definitely the best solution.

The tubular bells solution, which is sadly most common in modern practice, has several problems. One, the highest of the first Cs, C4, fits the tubular bells' range, since that is the standard lowest pitch on the instrument. But the highest of the following Gs, G3, does _not_. Second, the tone of the tubular bells is all wrong; their timbre is too pure, lacking in the striking non-harmonic partials that you find in church bells. Third, tubular bells were invented in the 1850s, and while a few composers such as Verdi and Puccini authorized the use of tubular bells to replace church bells in their scores, as far as I can tell Berlioz never did (he died in 1869).

I had to make an adjustment to accept hearing the pianos in Immerseel's recording, but the adjustment was quick, because pianos have clangorous, non-harmonic spectra (especially with more than one and doubled octaves as written) that sound more like church bells than tubular bells do. To my ear, the weirdness fits. But actual church bells are the best solution.

Nonetheless, if you want to hear how _Symphonie fantastique_ sounded most often in Berlioz's time, pianos are the informed solution. This was Immerseel's reasoning.


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## mikeh375

...a quick Berlioz tale.

On one of the examination days at the conservatory, Cherubini, reading a composition of Berlioz's asked, 'What does this pause of two bars mean?" 'I thought", answered Berlioz, "that the prolonged silence would produce a certain effect upon the public."
"Oh you thought so, did you?" replied Cherubini, with his habitual bad temper. "Well I think the effect would be greater still if you lengthened the pause....".....Ouch.

(taken from 'A Book of Musical Anecdotes' by Lebrecht).


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## Joachim Raff

Knorf said:


> Yes, indeed. One the first page of the last movement, p. 98, Berlioz wrote in a footnote:
> "If 2 bells are not available which are large enough to produce one of the 3 Cs and one of the 3 Gs as written, it is better to use the piano-fortes. In such event, the bell-part must be played with double-octaves as written." Also, the bells are supposed to be backstage, another indication that is not always followed.
> 
> There is evidence that the solution using pianos is what was often used in Berlioz's day, since church bells that sound at the correct pitch weigh several tons each. (There is contemporary criticism and correspondence that refers to the pianos.)
> 
> A number of top-tier modern orchestras now have church bells that are large enough, mounted on wheeled stands to be portable, and have stages that can support the weight, but this was problematic in Berlioz's day. Today, this is definitely the best solution.
> 
> The tubular bells solution, which is sadly most common in modern practice, has several problems. One, the highest of the first Cs, C4, fits the tubular bells' range, since that is the standard lowest pitch on the instrument. But the highest of the following Gs, G3, does _not_. Second, the tone of the tubular bells is all wrong; their timbre is too pure, lacking in the striking non-harmonic partials that you find in church bells. Third, tubular bells were invented in the 1850s, and while a few composers such as Verdi and Puccini authorized the use of tubular bells to replace church bells in their scores, as far as I can tell Berlioz never did (he died in 1869).
> 
> I had to make an adjustment to accept hearing the pianos in Immerseel's recording, but the adjustment was quick, because pianos have clangorous, non-harmonic spectra (especially with more than one and doubled octaves as written) that sound more like church bells than tubular bells do. To my ear, the weirdness fits. But actual church bells are the best solution.
> 
> Nonetheless, if you want to hear how _Symphonie fantastique_ sounded most often in Berlioz's time, pianos are the informed solution. This was Immerseel's reasoning.


Many thanks for you time researching and answering some of the queries around the score. This piece of music has fascinated me for years to the extent its becoming a compulsion to find a perfect recording for my taste. One thing is for sure, there are more bad ones than good ones.


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## mbhaub

Joachim Raff said:


> Many thanks for you time researching and answering some of the queries around the score. This piece of music has fascinated me for years to the extent its becoming a compulsion to find a perfect recording for my taste. One thing is for sure, there are more bad ones than good ones.


There are some bad ones, boring ones. But there are also a few that use the historically correct instrument that Berlioz originally wrote parts for: Ophicleide. Later, as technology improved he changed it to Tuba 1 & 2, but the sound of the ophicleide is quite startling. Norrington used them, and probably others too.


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## Knorf

Hang on, was replacing the ophicleide parts with tubas actually authorized by Berlioz? That's news to me, if true.


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## mbhaub

You're right - Berlioz didn't make the change, the publishers did. The 1900 Breitkopf parts are marked Tuba. The more recent Barenreiter edition rightfully retains Ophicleide. It is a unique sound and the tuba just seems too refined! But then most performances also use German bassoons, and the sound with the French Basson really makes a difference too. In general I don't like Norrington's work, but boy did he open our ears with this recording.


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## Allegro Con Brio

Knorf said:


> Hang on, was replacing the ophicleide parts with tubas actually authorized by Berlioz? That's news to me, if true.


I seem to recall that Berlioz hated the sound of the opheicleide and wished there was a more suitable instrument for his visions. If someone wants to correct me, I would be glad. In any case I enjoyed hearing them on the Gardiner recording and in many ways, even prefer them because they seem to have the rougher, coarser, more darkly colorful sound that I associate with the hallucinatory nature of the music.

This discussion reminds me of what Hurwitz said (yes, I know, but I think it's an interesting observation) - no one really cares about the first three movements of the _Fantastique_!


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## Knorf

Allegro Con Brio said:


> This discussion reminds me of what Hurwitz said (yes, I know, but I think it's an interesting observation) - no one really cares about the first three movements of the _Fantastique_!


I certainly do. And, I'm sorry, but the last two movements would _not_ have the impact they do without the first three. I suppose he says the same thing about Beethoven 9?

I'll add it to the ever-growing list as to why I think Hurwitz is totally unworthy of the influence he wields.


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## Simplicissimus

Knorf said:


> Yes, indeed. One the first page of the last movement, p. 98, Berlioz wrote in a footnote:
> "If 2 bells are not available which are large enough to produce one of the 3 Cs and one of the 3 Gs as written, it is better to use the piano-fortes. In such event, the bell-part must be played with double-octaves as written." Also, the bells are supposed to be backstage, another indication that is not always followed.
> 
> There is evidence that the solution using pianos is what was often used in Berlioz's day, since church bells that sound at the correct pitch weigh several tons each. (There is contemporary criticism and correspondence that refers to the pianos.)
> 
> A number of top-tier modern orchestras now have church bells that are large enough, mounted on wheeled stands to be portable, and have stages that can support the weight, but this was problematic in Berlioz's day. Today, this is definitely the best solution.
> 
> The tubular bells solution, which is sadly most common in modern practice, has several problems. One, the highest of the first Cs, C4, fits the tubular bells' range, since that is the standard lowest pitch on the instrument. But the highest of the following Gs, G3, does _not_. Second, the tone of the tubular bells is all wrong; their timbre is too pure, lacking in the striking non-harmonic partials that you find in church bells. Third, tubular bells were invented in the 1850s, and while a few composers such as Verdi and Puccini authorized the use of tubular bells to replace church bells in their scores, as far as I can tell Berlioz never did (he died in 1869).
> 
> I had to make an adjustment to accept hearing the pianos in Immerseel's recording, but the adjustment was quick, because pianos have clangorous, non-harmonic spectra (especially with more than one and doubled octaves as written) that sound more like church bells than tubular bells do. To my ear, the weirdness fits. But actual church bells are the best solution.
> 
> Nonetheless, if you want to hear how _Symphonie fantastique_ sounded most often in Berlioz's time, pianos are the informed solution. This was Immerseel's reasoning.


This is a really, really good account of the subject at hand. As a listener interested in the acoustical and psychoacoustic properties of performed music, this just really rang my bell.


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## Cortot

Anyone listening to Pierrre Monteux's recordings? Wonderful...


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## Enthalpy

Low church bells are BIG hence costly. None has yet been made for Parsifal, and the less low ones for Berlioz are a continued headache.

Tubular bells and their meagre sound can't replace church bells. No wonder Berlioz recommended an alternative. Chinese gongs serve in Brussels.

At a fair, I tried tubular bells extending lower than usual. On this particular set, the lowest tubes sounded an octave higher. There was a break in the height perception, dong-dong-dong lower and lower, and below some note, it went on ding-ding-ding despite the tubes were longer. I know no explanation. But on the Web, some low tubular bells sound low, so it's feasible.

Berlioz disdains the serpent and ophicléide in his _Traité d'instrumentation_ but he wanted them for the _Symphonie fantastique_. If you find an ophicléide player, the instrument comes with him, so it's only half as hard


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## maestro267

While it is pleasant, I do often find my attention wandering during the 3rd movt. of the Fantastique. Waiting for the storm of timpani to herald the change.


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## Enthalpy

If someone wants to hear an ophicleide (and a serpent, and a cornetto, and an alphorn too), links are there
talkclassical​


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## MarkW

Cortot said:


> Anyone listening to Pierrre Monteux's recordings? Wonderful...


Monteux's VPO recording has always defined for me what the bells should sound like, probably because it was my first Fantastique. Definitely not tubular, which are indeed wrong.


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