Title: Symphonie fantastique (Episode de la vie d’un Artiste…en cinq parties) H. 48, Op. 14
Duration: Approximately 53 minutes
Composer: Hector Berlioz (Born in La Côte-St.-André, Isère, France in1803; died in Paris, France in 1869)
Work composed: 1830
World premiere: The premiere took place at the Paris Conservatoire on December 5, 1830 with Hector Berlioz conducting.
Instrumentation: 2 flutes (including piccolo), 2 oboes (including English horn), 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 cornets (similar to a trumpet), 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 ophicleides (now substituted with tubas), timpani (played by 1 to 4 players), percussion (cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, 2 church bells (often substituted with orchestral chimes)), 2 harps, strings
When French composer Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique premiered in 1830 with himself conducting, he insisted that a literary program be distributed to the audience. He explained that the program was “…indispensable for a complete understanding of the dramatic outline of the work.” This story tells of a troubled young artist who sees a woman, his “Beloved,” who embodies all his ideals in a mate and he becomes disturbingly obsessed with her. Both the thought, and a musical representation, of his Beloved plague him with increasing amplitude (what Berlioz called a double “idée fixe”). His obsession leads him to try poisoning himself with opium, but the dose is insufficient. Instead, it plunges him into horrible dreams where he murders his Beloved and he witnesses his own execution followed by a graphic and hellish funeral attended by witches and ghouls of the grimmest sort.
Astoundingly, the Symphonie’s program was semi-autobiographical. In 1827, Berlioz’s fascination with Shakespeare brought him to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet by a visiting English troupe. There he saw for the first time his own Beloved, the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. After three years of obsessing about Harriet, Berlioz wrote his Symphonie in order to get her attention. He continued to obsess for three more years until they married in 1833. Unlike his symphonic hero, however, Berlioz’s obsession did not end in murder or suicide attempts, but his marriage ended in divorce in 1844.
As extraordinary as its program may have been, this is one of the most eyebrow-raising musical works in classical music. As some music historians have said, “modern music began with the Symphonie fantastique.” For the first time in musical history, Berlioz pioneers the idée fixe, a musical representation of an idea as a symphonically unifying theme. Here, the idée fixe represents the Beloved, who is “…passionate, noble and shy,” but it’s a wandering and almost un-melodic melody spanning fifteen measures. It’s first heard about five-and-a-half minutes into the first movement, and is an unlikely theme for gluing an entire symphony together. Throughout the Symphonie it appears in many contexts, surrounded by ingeniously bold, sometimes wild, harmonies. This is a masterpiece of opposites – alongside his highly creative developments of motives that range through a host of extreme emotions, Berlioz nonetheless maintains a pacing and balance that are spellbindingly controlled. And the Symphonie’s instrumentation and orchestration would transform sound possibilities for a century to come. Twentieth-century French composer Oliver Messiaen said that the Symphonie fantastique began other composers’ first, genuine awareness of an extended range of timbres that could be possible in the orchestra. Extremely precise about the colors he wanted, Berlioz scored for a range of unusual instruments and for new and different playing techniques. For the first time, for example, we hear four timpanists creating chords (representing thunder in the third movement), and in the fourth movement, Berlioz scored a very prominent solo for “ophecliedes” (a predecessor of the tuba). Messiaen’s case in point was the church bells (or chimes) in the last movement, which were shockingly new in the symphonic world of 1830.
Before the idée fixe arrives in Part I (the first movement Dreams – Passions), Berlioz creates an inventive soundscape that seems to portray the psyche of the Artist. The opening sequences feature frequent triplet rhythms snaking and intertwining in the strings and woodwinds. Explosive fortissimos (notes played very loudly) occasionally interrupt. The atmosphere feels vulnerable and nervous as though the Artist’s psyche is jangled and fragile. When the idée fixe does indeed appear, first played by the upper violins and flute, the accompaniment in the remainder of the strings is aggressive and excited, like the accelerated, almost violent, beating of the Artist’s heart.
Part II takes place at A Ball with dancing, and here Berlioz at first creates a happy atmosphere. One of the unique techniques of the Symphonie is that every movement is scored for slightly different instruments – here, the two harps have extended parts and help evoke a refined and courtly scene, and Berlioz’s main waltz theme, first played by the violins, is wonderfully memorable, too. The idée fixe returns at about 2-and-a-half minutes played by the flute and oboe together. Because of the idée fixe’s curious musical nature, it tries to blend into the waltzing music but struggles – the heartbeat rhythms heap up and the rest of the orchestra becomes fractured in its accompaniment. Instead, it’s more of an intrusive thought which eventually drifts back to the dancing at hand – however, the waltzing never quite returns to normal, becoming increasingly off-kilter, until the idée fixe returns in the solo clarinet.
Part III, Scene in the Fields, also introduces three exquisitely inventive orchestral ideas. First, Berlioz features an English horn solo, a double reed instrument akin to the oboe, but slightly deeper in range and color. The English horn was a great rarity in 1830 in the orchestra, especially when used as a soloist, as Berlioz does here. The English horn is representing a shepherd’s horn playing a ranz des vaches [a traditional shepherd’s song] and an oboe returns the call as though two shepherds are calling back and forth to each other across the hills. Second, even more extraordinary for the time, however, is that in order to mimic the great distance between the two “shepherds,” Berlioz instructs the oboe to be played derrière la scene, i.e., offstage. The idée fixe invades the orchestral fabric at about seven minutes into the movement, played as a duet between the oboe and flute, which again riles the orchestra up into angular and agitated rhythms. Third, a particularly stunning orchestral soundscape ends the movement. The solo English horn returns to play its shepherd’s song over a timpani choir – Berlioz scores for four percussionists to play on four differently tuned timpani, creating a kind of wonderfully tonal thunder in the far-off distance.
Part IV, the March to the Scaffold, is as graphic as any music there is until, perhaps, some of the Expressionist’s music (for example, some of the darker music of Viennese composer Anton Webern) at the turn of the 20th Century, but Berlioz’s is certainly more fun to hear. The depiction of the artist marching to the guillotine is tense and horrifying. The extreme terror, pain, even the crowd’s excitement, as the hero is being led through the mocking and jeering crowds towards decapitation is palpable in Berlioz’s music. The last thing the Artist thinks about before the guillotine drops is his Beloved’s idée fixe.
Part V, the Dream of the Witches Sabbath dance, has a true stroke of brilliance by employing, and parodying, the tune of the Dies irae (Day of Wrath), a very old chant from the Catholic Mass for the Dead, heard played with an ominous character by the ophecliedes (usually substituted by tubas) and bassoons. The rough and grisly celebration of ghouls and monsters is breathtakingly alive and Berlioz manages to capture its perversion and sinister-ness in sound – even in repurposing the idée fixe as the opening demonic dance tune. And all through the movements, the idée fixe weaves incessantly, obsessively, in and out, again and again, in one guise or another, making the Symphonie fantastique a miraculously unified symphony. Amazingly, even an obsession can be transformed into great art.