<<  -- 3 --  Robert Anderson    MARSHALLING THE OPHICLEIDES

The liner notes are mainly in Japanese, to me more beautiful than intelligible. Maybe in the midst is some reference to the 'bellowing ophicleide', so essential to the 'Witches' Sabbath' but so rarely to be discovered in a modern orchestra, let alone the pair of them that Berlioz requests. Schumann seems to be rather on the side of angels and ministers of grace when claiming that the double fugue, 'if not wholly worthy of Bach, is highly correct and clearly built'. Shaw wondered more appositely if the English listener could understand 'the blasphemous mockery' of the Dies irae, for which Berlioz marshals his ophicleides. The Boston players revel among the cavorting witches with gleeful efficiency [listen -- track 5, 1:26-2:42].

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