I,II - Rêveries - Passions (Daydreams - Passions) / III - Un bal (A ball) / IV,V - Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country) / VI - Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold) / VII - Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)
Conductor - Leonard Bernstein /Orchestre National de France
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Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties (Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist, in Five Parts), Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences worldwide. The first performance took place at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. The work was repeatedly revised between 1831 and 1845 and subsequently became a favourite in Paris.
Outline
The symphony is a piece of program music which tells the story of "an artist gifted with a lively imagination" who has "poisoned himself with opium" in the "depths of despair" because of "hopeless love." Berlioz provided his own program notes for each movement of the work (see below). He prefaces his notes with the following instructions.
The composer’s intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following programme must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression.
There are five movements, instead of the four movements which were conventional for symphonies at the time:
1. Rêveries - Passions (Daydreams - Passions)
2. Un bal (A ball)
3. Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country)
4. Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold)
5. Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)
Harriet Smithson
Berlioz fell in love with an Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, after attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet with her in the role of Ophelia, on 11 September 1827. He sent her numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered. When she left Paris they had still not met. He then wrote the symphony as a way to express his unrequited love. It premiered in Paris on 5 December 1830; Harriet was not present. She eventually heard the work in 1832 and realized that she was the genesis. The two finally met and were married on 3 October 1833. Their marriage was increasingly bitter, and they separated after several years of unhappiness.
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