Music: New Records, Sep. 27, 1954

Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (Suzanne Danco, David Poleri, Martial Singher; Harvard and Radcliffe choruses; Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch; Victor 3 LPs). The greatest translation into music of Goethe's Faust, this score reaches heights of drama and tenderness undreamed of in Gounod's more popular version. Mephistopheles makes his entrances to portentous, brassy thunderclaps, Marguerite changes from an innocent child to a passionate woman in the toils of love, and Faust himself is almost painfully credible. The "dramatic legend" proved too big—and perhaps too tightly composed—to be a success on stage,...

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