SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE( TALES OF POE)
concerto with tremendous success in Madrid, and he continued to play it all over the world, even after Prokofiev permanently returned to the USSR.
The Second Violin Concerto opens with the solo violin playing a haunting melody based on Russian folk music. Drama and intensity increase as the orchestra enters, and we hear Prokofiev’ s distinctive use of imitation between different instruments, each playing fragments of that theme one after another.
The sublime second movement features pizzicato( plucked) strings accompanying an exquisite soaring melody in the solo violin. Prokofiev creates a gentle, rocking groove by having the strings playing in continuous rhythmic groupings of three while the violin sometimes has groupings of two.
The final movement is a rondo, which means that the opening section of the music continues to return. In addition to virtuosic passagework, the soloist must navigate the double and triple stops( chords) that mark the opening of each statement of the rondo theme. Prokofiev utilizes several Spanish elements in this movement, including specific rhythmic patterns and castanets in the percussion section.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, bass drum, cymbals( pair), castanets, snare drum, triangle, and strings, in addition to solo violin.
Hector Berlioz
Born: December 11, 1803, La Côte-Saint- André, France Died: March 8, 1869 in Paris, France
SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, OP. 14 [ 1830 ]
Immediately after seeing Harriet Smithson perform the roles of Ophelia and Juliet in 1827, Hector Berlioz became obsessed with her, saying he had“ just been plunged into an endless, insatiable passion.” Smithson’ s magnetic performances were so captivating that they inspired a new style of Shakespearean acting. For three years, Berlioz fantasized about Smithson, first with adoring passion and then a bitterness that fueled the composition of Symphonie fantastique. The programmatic work vividly tells the story of an artist who poisons himself with opium after experiencing soul-crushing unrequited love. Smithson did finally meet Berlioz in 1832 and married him the next year, but the relationship rapidly ended.
Symphonie fantastique takes the listener on an incredible journey of drug-induced visions that are created entirely with instrumental sounds. No other symphonic composer of Western classical music had attempted a programmatic work of this scale before. The orchestra required for the piece is massive, calling for a full complement of winds, percussion, brass, and strings, including two harps and two ophicleides( a low brass instrument; the tuba or euphonium is typically used today).
Each of the five movements of Symphonie fantastique portrays a scene from the protagonist’ s life and employs a melodic idée fixe( a recurring, obsessive, preoccupation). This poignant melody full of longing provides a sense of aural cohesion to the piece and heightens the protagonist’ s frenzied desire.
In the first movement, the artist falls madly in love with a woman who embodies every ideal he has ever imagined. Although he has only seen her at a distance, she becomes a constant fixture in his psyche. Every time he fantasizes about her, the same musical theme comes to his mind, creating a double idée fixe. First presented clearly in the violins after the dramatic introduction, this melody returns again at various times in the first movement.
No matter where the protagonist finds himself, the idealized image of the woman is present. In the second movement we arrive at a ball, and after a short introduction the music bursts into a waltz. The main waltz theme is loosely based on the melodic idée fixe, although the quick speed of the piece and the triple feeling distort it to be nearly unrecognizable. Despite the ebullient feeling of a waltz, a sense of foreboding is lurking just beneath the surface.
In the third movement, the protagonist hears two shepherds playing pipes while strolling in the countryside. He is simultaneously hopeful that he will not be lonely forever and worried that the woman of his fantasies might betray him. This emotional polarity comes to a climax in the middle of the movement, when the flute and oboe play the idée fixe. As the movement ends, only one of the shepherds resumes its song, thunder rolls in the distance, and we are left with solitude.
Berlioz is said to have written the fourth movement in just one night. In utter despair, the protagonist takes a nonlethal dose of opium and experiences violent hallucinations. He dreams that he has murdered the ideal woman, been condemned, is marching to the guillotine, and witnessing his own execution. The march to the scaffold is as chaotic as the hallucination, with the sounds of muffled footsteps interrupted by blaring brass and light-hearted melodies. We hear the final measures of the idée fixe at the end of the march.
In the final movement, the protagonist dreams that he is surrounded by a terrifying assortment of ghosts, sorcerers, and monsters. Amidst their strange noises, the idée fixe appears again, but now as a grotesque dance. A funeral bell is sounded, and then the“ Dies irae”(“ Day of Wrath”) chant from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass ominously emerges in the brass. Eventually, the witches’ dance is superimposed with the chant, bringing the entire piece to a tragic, demented close.
Instrumentation: Two flutes( second doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets( first doubling E-flat clarinet), four bassoons, four horns, two trumpets and two cornets, three trombones, two tubas, two timpani, bass drum, cymbals( suspended and pair), tambourine, glockenspiel, and strings.
PAULA MAUST is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Peabody Conservatory. She is the author of Expanding the Music Theory Canon and performs extensively as a harpsichordist and organist.
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