Review: Decca's Charles Dutoit "How The Mighty Have Fallen" Collection 

Saw him twice in Montreal during his heyday. It was the high quality of orchestral playing that impressed me most. He had the privilege of driving a magnificent Maserati of an ensemble. Stunning playing.

A few years after seeing CD with Philly in Miami (while a student at Tanglewood Festival) He was walking around backstage among me(tuba)and 40 other brass players waiting to go on stage and play 3 numbers with John Williams. CD was very nice, friendly, and pleasant. He remarked that he had never been so close to so many brass players at one time. He told some "brass" jokes, so maybe he did play Trombone at one time. Several of us got photos with him & autographs, as as the line moved I realized at one point I was standing next to him & John Williams...Good Times 👍

Visceral I know but his Three-Cornered Hat has always been my favorite just because he has that bass drum and the trombones at the beginning of the final dance, I suppose I listen to the whole thing just in anticipation of that satisfying smack.

Montreal had great trombones, for sure. I must also speak up for the fabulous trumpet section. James Thompson and his section set the standard for exciting trumpet playing with a certain flair that was difficult to find elsewhere. The Daphnis and Chloe release was remarkable in many ways. I have to agree with Mr. Coalwell. Dutoit was driving a sport sedan in that orchestra.

@5:50 believe it or not you can clearly hear that organ pedal entry in Toscanini’s NBC “Pines”; although it’s 70 years old, it’s still a thrilling moment.

Another invaluable summary of late Decca output for me to look out for as most of the ones that came out on vinyl are cheap as chips. I’ve picked up quite a lot of Dutoit and I do feel part of that lush consistent sound quality comes from his long working association with the Decca recording engineer John Dunkerley who brilliantly transposed the sonic excellence of the great Kenneth Wilkinson into the digital age.

The very first CD I ever bought was Dutoit's Planets from BMG Music Club when I was like 14 or 15. I didn't know what it was, but I liked the cover. I was blown away. Dutoit basically introduced me to classical music. Because he was one of the big things in the early CD era, there were lots of discs out there. Again, I didn't know what any of it was, but I knew I could rely on Dutoit to record music that I'd find interesting. And it worked! It was only over the course of many, many years that I let go of my nostalgic loyalty & realized that much of what he recorded could be found in better interpretations. But some of these are still wonderful, especially Daphnis, Planets, & Roman Trilogy. I've only seen him live twice, both times conducting the NYPO. Once doing The Planets (& I think Debussy Nocturnes), and once doing the Respighi trilogy. Both were unbelievably amazing experiences. Universal should eventually do a complete Dutoit. There's a lot of non-Montréal stuff he did (Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky, Dompierre (!), Mendelssohn, Poulenc, et al.), some of which is really good.

Dave, votre français n'est pas trop mal!!! Aussi, votre critique des CD de Dutoit et de l'OSM est intéressante et je la partage. Cheers from Montréal!

Have read that Dutoit had studied the trombone in his youth, so that he had a good trombone section is not altogether surprising.

As a Berlioz fan I think his “Les Troyens” is the best conducted of any I’ve heard. The playing of the orchestra is magnificent. Additionally his live performance of “The Pines of Rome” in London (RAH) some years ago produced literally a cathedral of sound, absolutely astonishing. I don’t care about his personal side, he remains one of the finest conductors of the past 40 years.

I borrowed Dutoit's Planets recording from a friend for test purposes when buying speakers in the late 1980s. Specifically, the amazing organ entry at the end of Uranus - the ultimate bass note! But the rest was great too.

"it may be because the Planets does not need any emotional depth" LOL But, I agree with you 100%: he's a swift cool-ish conductor. I don't even think I have any Dutoit CD's anymore. I am anticipating your John Elliot Gardiner chat!

The other thing worth mentioning about that planets is the sound. Absolutely the best sounding planets out there, a huge bravo to those engineers. Agreed about the Faure requiem, one of the best ones recorded. There’s a LOT missing all with Montreal. Pélléas et Melissande, Les Troyens, Shostakovich 5&9, L’enfance du Christ….. Curious what the point of this box was…is it just from certain years?

Amazon has The Art of Charles Dutoit 6-CD set, plus several single CDs.

Loved his Daphnis and Chloe recording but the CD in those days had no tracks so I returned it. So basically it was one lump of 55 minutes ravishing music instead of 21 tracks. Sometimes you want to skip to a certain track. This performance was included in the complete RAVEL box and tracks included which I bought 30 years later 😊

I agree with your 'best of' choices in this box, especially Daphnis et Chloe, the Ibert collection, and the Planets. Also Petrushka, which is the best of his Stravinsky ballets. As you would know, he made a good DG recording of it prior to his Montreal post, with (I think) the LPO. Petrushka was already in Dutoit's repertoire, and it makes me wonder whether some of the less successful performances were new to him when these recordings were made.

He did some great recordings in London - his Saint Saens recording of miscellaneous orchestral pieces is wonderful (splendid Danse Macabre and Phaëton lives up to it's epic Greek legend story). He also did an earlier Petrushka for DG with the LSO and Tamás Vásáry playing the piano part, which is no slouch.

25 years or so with the one orchestra is not a bad innings! Eventually something's gotta give. Interesting to note the engineer (and maybe producer?) for The Planets was not the regular one, and voila! - they got the best sound of the whole set!

My experience with classical music started with Dutoits Fauré and Holst, when a friend gave me this two CDs. Today I prefere other recordings, but these two were a very good dooropener.

Thank you for reviewing this box set that I got when it came out, although I had a few records from this box set on lp. I live in Montreal, and for several years I have attended dozens osm concert with dutoit.....i know you don't like when we talk about an artist in concert, but one that i remember is this concert where we heard the 2nd concerto for brahms piano with andré watts and dutoit conducting, and of which I have very good memories. I have of course followed the evolution of dutoit's recordings on decca, which have always seemed interesting to me....and even if his contract with the osm ended in fishtail, in 2003, he will have at least put the orchestra on “the map” as they say

The ONLY Dutoit recordings I like are his Tchaikovsky ballets. Which is extremely surprising, considering how cool and reticent he usually was. I think "shallow" is the perfect way to describe him. And I'm amazed he did a great Shostakovich 8th. I can't imagine him doing that piece at all, nevermind well. 😄

I bought this set as well, now maybe I'll get it out and listen to it!

Never had a lot of time for Dutoit, but I like his Honegger set on Erato/Warner. Energised but not romanticised is how that music should be played, IMO.

Yes...I almost totally agree with this appraisal...perhaps controversially, considering its near universal approval, I don't like his Planets recording. The bloom of the church I feel works against the immediacy of sound necessary to create the impact required for the big pieces. The church worked really well for the Ravel, Debussy, Faure etc but all those discs you nayed i feel the venue was partly to blame, as well as the interpretation of course.

It's too bad Dutoit was cancelled in Philly. Did I hear you mention his Kodaly? I'm not sure if you did, but it's one of my favorites.

Evidently, Dutoit's Prokofiev is not in this boxset. The Romeo and Juliet selections is a great disc.

I've always enjoyed my Dutoit version of the Saint-Saens 3rd, especially compared to the versions I have( Pretre and Ormandy: I never could get my hands on the RCA Munch one) so it's kind of heart breaking to hear it descibed as" horrible, absolutely horrible" but then I'm no expert.

Your description of Dutoit with the MSO kind of echoes my impression of Karajan with the Berlin Phil, i.e., extremely polished but only occasionally inspired and that usually in repertoire that he's not normally associated with.

Very much like the Ansermet recordings, Decca engineers found a real sweet spot in that Montreal church. Dutoit cultivated a very transparent and colorful sound from the orchestra (just like Ansermet) which lended itself very well to French repertoire (just like Ansermet). Dutoit never really "got" the Russian repertoire (UNLIKE Ansermet). Dutoit's Falla is fine, but still....the stereo Ansermet really has never truly been matched. Concerning his troubles in Philly....so many men fall victim to their impulses. So very many. (Levine, anyone?). This is not to excuse them. We must always think first of their victims. Those women deserve to be taken on their musical merits, not their sexuality. In the end, Dutoit was and is a very fine conductor and a very flawed person. I will always enjoy his best recordings.

I guess he just got bored of waving his arms in thin air - wanted to feel something for a change! Conductors lol!

Happy to have gotten this box before Dutoit got cancelled. He conducted in Singapore several times, having made his home here, and also popped up occasionally to hear his friends like Argerich and Ashkenazy perform. Dutoit sightings here became a sort of activity for musical trainspotters and nerds.

the box is far from complete, even considering only Montreal.and of course there will never be another box with other bands. All of the French music *Poulenc, Chausson) with the National de France is very good, for example. Among the worst omissions are the very few last recordings he made for Decca, with the Suisse Romande orchestra. The canceling was already happening, and they did not have great circulation to begin with. In particular , I have and treasure the Saint-Saens piano concertos 2 and 5 with Thibaudet...brilliant, especially the Egyptian.

He used a sythesizer in the climax of the 1812. Why?!

That box is by no means all of Dutoit's Montreal recordings. I have all of them separately before Dutoit was cancelled as the other comment said. Sure, some performances were better than others as to be found in such a big discography but one could have done a whole lot worse. Even Dutoit's worst recordings were better than what we see nowadays. I heard him live bnoth in Montreal and NYC where I live. I must say that those live performances had an extra frisson or energy if you will. So hope Decca comes up with a truly complete survey. Sad that his career took a plunge the way it did but should not erase what he did prior.

No "Carnival of Animals"? I though that was one of Dutoit's better discs.