On September 11, 1827, as Hector Berlioz sat in the audience at the Paris Odeon watching a performance of Hamlet put on by a London theater company, the Symphonie fantastique was made possible. Twenty-seven-year-old Harriet Smithson played the younger female roles. Berlioz fell wildly in love and wrote to Smithson repeatedly requesting a meeting. When the hoped-for encounter didn’t take place, he channeled his energies into composition—and a new symphony sprang to life. Berlioz described the work to his friend, the poet Humbert Ferrand: “An artist, gifted with a vivid imagination, [falls in love with] a woman who embodies the ideal of beauty and fascination that he has long been seeking. . .. In a fit of despair, he poisons himself with opium, but the narcotic, instead of killing him, induces a horrible vision” in which he believes that, having killed his beloved, he is condemned to death and witnesses his own execution. After death, he “sees himself surrounded by a foul assembly of sorcerers and devils. . .. [His beloved] is now only a prostitute, fit to take part in such an orgy.” 

While the premiere of the Symphonie fantastique took place in the winter of 1830, Berlioz revised it two years later—and it was at this performance, on December 9, 1832, that the composer finally met the object of his desire. Berlioz and Smithson were married on October 3, 1833, and the relationship was a disaster. Although they separated in 1844, Berlioz continued to support Smithson—who became both an alcoholic and paralyzed—until the end of her life in 1854.

The crux of the Symphonie fantastique is the idée fixe (“fixed idea”), a returning motive that Berlioz uses to symbolize his unrequited love that is heard in the first Allegro. The composer provided extremely detailed program notes to guide audiences through the story on which the symphony is based.

Part One: Dreams – Passions 

 

The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted with that moral disease that a well-known writer calls the vague des passions (“wave of passion”), sees for the first time a woman who embodies all the charms of the ideal being he has imagined in his dreams, and he falls desperately in love with her. Through an odd whim, whenever the beloved image appears before the mind’s eye of the artist, it is linked with a musical thought whose character, passionate but at the same time noble and shy, he finds similar to the one he attributes to his beloved.  

 

This melodic image and the model it reflects pursue him incessantly like a double idée fixe. That is the reason for the constant appearance, in every movement of the symphony, of the melody that begins the first Allegro. The passage from this state of melancholy reverie, interrupted by a few fits of groundless joy, to one of frenzied passion, with its gestures of fury, of jealousy, its return of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations—this is the subject of the first movement.

 

Part Two: A Ball 

 

The artist finds himself in the most varied situations—in the midst of the tumult of a party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beauties of nature; but everywhere, in town, in the country, the beloved image appears before him and disturbs his peace of mind.  

 

Part Three: A Scene in the Country 

 

Finding himself one evening in the country, he hears in the distance two shepherds piping a ranz des vaches in dialogue. This pastoral duet, the scenery, the quiet rustling of the trees gently brushed by the wind, the hopes he has recently found some reason to entertain—all concur in affording his heart an unaccustomed calm and in giving a more cheerful color to his ideas. He reflects upon his isolation; he hopes that his loneliness will soon be over. – But what if she were deceiving him! – This mingling of hope and fear, these ideas of happiness disturbed by black presentiments, form the subject of the Adagio. At the end, one of the shepherds again takes up the ranz des vaches; the other no longer replies. –Distant sound of thunder—loneliness—silence.

 

Part Four: March to the Scaffold 

 

Convinced that his love is unappreciated, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of the narcotic, too weak to kill him, plunges him into a sleep accompanied by the most horrible visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned and led to the scaffold, and that he is witnessing his own execution. The procession moves forward to the sounds of a march that is now somber and fierce, now brilliant and solemn, in which the muffled noise of heavy steps gives way without transition to the noisiest clamor. At the end of the march, the first four measures of the idée fixe reappear, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

 

Part Five: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath 

 

He sees himself at the sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troop of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind, come together for his funeral. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries which other cries seem to answer. The beloved melody appears again, but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it is no more than a dance tune, mean, trivial, and grotesque: it is she, coming to join the sabbath. – A roar of joy at her arrival. – She takes part in the devilish orgy. – Funeral knell, burlesque parody of the Dies irae [a hymn sung in the funeral rites of the Catholic Church], sabbath round-dance. The sabbath round and the Dies irae are combined.