The Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Payare. "Hector Berlioz- Music box", October 13th, 2025

An album that will be released by the Dutch record label "Pentatone" on October 17th, 2025: pieces by Hector Berlioz, performed by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Rafael Payare.

A brilliant album that continues the Canadian ensemble's dive, led by its musical director, 45 year old Venezuela-born Rafael Payare, into the world of the 19^th and early 20^th century music: it's the fourth album with this cast released by the "Pentatone" label in just two years. On the first three albums we can hear pieces by Mahler, Richards Strauss and Arnold Scholzberg. And now, Hector Berlioz's Le carnaval romain (Roman Carnival) and the Symphonie fantastique (Fantastical Symphony).

It's been 195 years since the premiere of a Berlioz symphony with a special place in the history of music, a symbol of Romantic music, the first programmatic symphony and a piece that was unconventional for its time. Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (Fantastical Symphony) was written and performed for the first time in 1830, the year of the July Revolution in Paris, a sign of the new social and economic wave that was going to spread across all of Europe throughout the 19^th century. However, the Symphonie fantastique (Fantastical Symphony) doesn't speak of the troubles of society, but those of the Romantic artist. It contains all of the elements that characterize Romanticism: the fantastic, a rich and tumultuous inner world expressed across 5 parts in which we see the development of the fixed idea, symbolizing the obsession that the composer had developed for a singer of his time, from their first meeting, to the march towards the scaffold, and then the dream of a Sabbath night.

It's music that requires a lot of creativity, brilliance, passion, but at the same time, rigor and a clear structure. Conductor Rafael Payare, together with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, succeeds in doing exactly that. Sure, Rafael Payare brings the passion and enthusiasm that's specific to Venezuelans coming from the El Sistema school, which he himself is a product of, but nothing is in excess, it's tastefully constructed for a 21^st century audience. I'd also like to point out the way Payare brings out certain wind instrument sections, where we can practically feel the brass instruments featured in South American music, probably a small personal signature he leaves on this recording. The string sections evolve spectacularly, compact and with a rich, full of depth sound.