Program Notes }
three movements: two fast movements
surrounding a slower one.
Opening with three forceful repeated
chords, the first movement is a vivacious Allegro in traditional sonata form.
Its graceful, winding second theme is
particularly attractive and presages the
mood of the slow movement to come. The
development section further explores this
romantic mood.
In D major, the Andante grazioso
slow movement is a lovely nocturnal serenade with the violins playing with mutes
to increase the hushed atmosphere. The
shimmering color of flutes contributes
prominently to this world of shadows and
romantic trysts.
An angular four-note motive launches
the Presto finale and, with its many
entrances, even seems ready to generate a
little fugue. Instead, however, it soon expands into a smoothly lyrical melody and
continues to animate nearly every measure
of this sparkling jig-like music.
it was as revolutionary as the “Eroica”
or the Ninth. It is the first true program
symphony: a work in which the music
is generated not primarily by abstract
musical rules and forms, but by an extramusical plot. Beethoven had made some
tentative steps in this direction with his
“Pastoral” Symphony, but Berlioz leapt far
ahead of him, paving the way for Liszt’s
descriptive works, Mahler’s symphonies,
and ultimately Richard Strauss’ graphic
tone poems.
The symphonic plot is based on Berlioz’s consuming, unfulfilled passion for
the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom
he first saw when she appeared in productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo
and Juliet in Paris in 1827. Although he
understood no English, the volatile young
artist was smitten equally by Shakespeare
and by Miss Smithson. His ardor for her
burned even though they did not meet
until 1832 (they married in 1833; a disastrous union that proved one should never
try to turn fantasy into reality).
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two horns
and strings.
Here, somewhat abridged, is
Berlioz’s storyline:
Symphonie Fantastique
[Movement one:] “An artist, afflicted with
a passionate imagination sees for the first
time a woman who embodies all the
charms of the ideal being he has dreamed
of, and he falls hopelessly in love with her.
By some strange trick of fancy, the beloved
Hector Berlioz
Born in La Côte-Saint-André, France, December
11, 1803; died in Paris, March 8, 1869
Hector Berlioz wrote these words
to a friend in 1829, and a year later, he
embodied them in his first symphony, the
still astounding Symphonie fantastique.
Also titled “Episode in an Artist’s Life,”
it was created just three years after his
idol Beethoven’s death, and, in its way,
Mayer e t Pi erso n
“What a ferment of musical ideas there
is in me! … Now that I have broken the
chains of routine I see an immense plain
laid out before me which academic rules
once forbade me to enter. Now that I have
heard that awe-inspiring giant, Beethoven,
I know where the art of music now stands,
now I have to take it to that point and
push it yet further. … There are new
things to be done and plenty of them. I
sense this with intense energy, and I will
do them, you may be sure, if I live.”
Belioz
vision never appears … except in association with a musical idea [the work’s idée
fixe] whose character — passionate but
also noble and reticent— he finds similar
to the one he attributes to his beloved…”
[Movement two:] “The artist finds himself in the most varied situations — in the
midst of the tumult of a festivity, in the
peaceful contemplation of the beauty of
nature — but everywhere he is, in the city,
in the country, the beloved vision appears
before him and troubles his soul.”
The symphonic plot
is based on Berlioz’s
consuming, unfulfilled
passion for the Irish actress
Harriet Smithson.
[Movement three:] “Finding himself in
the country at evening, he hears in the
distance two shepherds piping a ranz des
vaches [a Swiss herding song] in dialogue.
… This pastoral duet, the quiet rustling of
the trees gently disturbed by the wind …
come together to give his heart an unaccustomed calm … But what if she were
deceiving him! … The distant sound of
thunder — solitude — silence.”
[Movement four:] In despair, “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 t