Page 164 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

162
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
The programmatic
symphony
BEFORE
1808 Beethoven premieres
his Sixth Symphony, the
“Pastoral,” which the composer
insists is “more expression of
feeling than tone-painting.”
1824 Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony ends with a choral
setting of a text taken from
German poet Friedrich
Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.”
AFTER
1848–1849 Liszt composes
Ce qu’on entend sur la
montagne, the first symphonic
poem, based on a poem by
Victor Hugo.
1857 First performance
of Liszt’s Faust Symphony,
which he dedicated to Berlioz.
US_162-163_Berlioz.indd 162
INSTRUMENTATION
IS AT THE HEAD OF
THE MARCH
SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE (1830),
HECTOR BERLIOZ
hroughout his career, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
French composer Hector starring the Irish actress Harriet
T Berlioz explored the format Smithson as Juliet. It proved to be
of the programmatic symphony— a fateful encounter, because Berlioz
a mood-evoking work influenced fell in love with Smithson and
by subjects outside of music, such would expend much energy over
as literature and art. It was his the next few years pursuing her.
Symphonie fantastique, however, During the course of this
composed early in his career, that infatuation, he felt compelled to
proved to be his most successful write a piece that would describe
and enduring work in the genre. his heightened passion and its
attendant joys and sorrows. He
Berlioz’s inspiraton intended its performance to launch
In 1827, as a 23-year-old music his career with a bold stroke and
student, Berlioz went to see at the same time dazzle Smithson.
a performance in Paris of The resulting piece Symphonie
fantastique premiered at the Paris
Conservatoire on December 5, 1830,
and a printed synopsis of the “plot”
was supplied.
Love and death
No one who hears this The title suggests a symphony
symphony here in Paris, of the imagination, while its
played by Berlioz’s orchestra, subtitle—“Episode in the life of
can help believing that an artist”—hints at the work’s
he is hearing a marvel autobiographical element, although
without precedent. its descriptive program (which
Richard Wagner Berlioz provided to audiences)
focuses more on fantasy than
reality. In the first movement, a
young musician awakens to find
love in the shape of an unknown
beautiful woman. Her image
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