For the record, this is one and the same “Munch Fantastique” credited to the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, first issued by Hungaroton on LP in the late 1970s, and later on CD. The 1966 recording stems from rehearsals where Munch played each movement once, and made suggestions afterward. What more could Munch have suggested to an orchestra that follows his volatile tempo fluctuations and dramatic impulses like starving tigers pouncing upon prey? Even the often-staid Scène aux champs is fraught with nervous energy. Munch is on far more freewheeling, maniacal form than in his inspired-enough Boston Symphony studio recordings, to say nothing of the relatively restrained Orchestre de Paris EMI traversal. The Hungarian musicians hardly match their Boston colleagues for tonal finesse and ensemble refinement, but the snarling, uncouth brass in the March to the Scaffold and the piercing woodwind trills in Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath fully convey the primal impact Berlioz intends. It’s easy to adjust to the cavernous engineering, although softer passages tend to get swallowed up in the ambience. In sum, a fascinating and recommendable supplement to the reference Fantastiques listed above.
