Hector Berlioz was an unlikely musical revolutionary who only began
dabbling in composition and teaching himself harmony out of
a book at the age of twelve. His father, a physician, disapproved of
these musical pursuits, so the young Berlioz never took lessons or
mastered an instrument. At eighteen he moved to Paris to study
the Paris Conservatoire in 1826. Remarkably, it was only four years
-
erations to come: Symphonie fantastique.
A pivotal moment in Berlioz’ development can be traced to one
production of Hamlet. In future years, Berlioz would write a number
of works on Shakespearean themes, but the most immediate
impact was that he left the theater smitten with Harriet Smithson,
the Irish actress who played Ophelia. His infatuation blossomed
-
came creative fodder. Expanding from the model of Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 6, with its “pastoral” storyline, Berlioz concocted
a symphony built around a dramatic tale of failed romance. This
An Episode in the Life of an Artist, with a subtitle
of Symphonie fantastique, or “Fantastical Symphony.”
The explicit links Berlioz made between instrumental music and a
narrative story marked the birth of a new genre, the program symphony,
which would become a cornerstone of the Romantic repertoire.
To support this programmatic format, Berlioz stretched
of the typical four), thematic unity (one appears throughout),
and instrumentation (incorporating recent inventions such as
valve trumpets and tuba-like ophicleides, and doubling the harp
and timpani).
Berlioz’ own program note describes the symphony’s narrative in
detail. He introduces “a young musician of morbid disposition and
powerful imagination”—a plain surrogate for Berlioz—who “poisons
himself with opium in an attack of despairing passion.” In the
ensuing opium dream, “the beloved herself appears to him as a
melody, … an obsessive idea that he keeps hearing wherever he
goes.”
Daydreams – Passions, “recalls the sick-
CHARLESTON GAILLARD CENTER: 2018-2019 SEASON PROGRAM: SPRING | 63