Symphonie fantastique

In 1827, Hector Berlioz saw a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Paris and fell desperately in love with Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress playing Ophelia. Smithson rebuffed Berlioz, causing a violent emotional reaction that eventually resulted in the Symphonie fantastique, one of his most brilliantly imaginative pieces. Cast in five movements lasting 50 minutes, this “episode in the life of an artist” traces the path of Berlioz’ infatuation. In the opening “Daydreams—Passions”, the unattainable beloved is represented by an idée fixe, a musical motif that recurs in various guises later. “A ball” portrays an elegant gathering where the beloved is present, while “Scene in the fields” mixes the countryside’s serenity with darker undertows of melancholy. The artist’s dream of love then turns to a torrid nightmare. Spurned, he takes opium, and in “March to the scaffold” imagines he has murdered the object of his passion and has been sent to the guillotine. The concluding “Dream of a witches’ sabbath” hurls the dead artist into a hideous farrago of “shades, sorcerers and monsters” gathered for his funeral. This gothic horror show is spectacularly depicted in Berlioz’ orchestration, achieving a kind of musical apotheosis for the tortured artist whose hopes of love have been destroyed forever.