Christine Rooney wrote:

>I agree, Les Nuits d'ete is wonderful.

To which James Zehm replied:

>Interesting comparision can be made here with the rest of his splashy
>stuff.

Splashy? I'm not sure what that means.  Fancy? Over-embellished? Bombastic?
Hyper-creative? Please elaborate, I am interested.

Somehow I think you're making reference to 'Symphonie fantastique'...I
suppose I could go with that.  I like it, even if its a bit much in places.
Well, OK, lots of places.  But it -is- fiendishly original.

But IMO 'Le carnaval romain' is a really great early example of a tone
poem, even if that genre per se had not really come into being.  I was
fortunate enough to play this work once and was even more impressed.  The
English Horn solo at the beginning is -so- cool and expressive.  The whole
thing is wonderfully orchestrated.  And not too 'splashy' I think (if I
have your meaning), except maybe in the brass parts.  But any interesting
brass parts from that period are hard to find in my experience.

Berlioz always sounds to me as if he lived 50 years after he actually did.
Remember that 'Symphonie fantastique' was composed around 1830!!  It sounds
so original to me that it could have easily been written in the late late
19th century.

I won't even start on 'Harold in Italie'.

Lastly, to stick to the thread:  I like 'Nuits d'ete' very much too.
(I have the V.  de los Angeles/Munch/Boston SO).  How is this work less
'splashy'?

Bob K.