Page 165 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 163

See also: The Four Seasons 92–97 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177 ■ The Ring
Cycle 180–187 ■ Also sprach Zarathustra 192–193 ■ Das Lied von der Erde 198–201

(represented by a recurring melody Scaffold,” he is executed. In the
Berlioz called the idée fixe) imposes second nightmare, he dreams
itself upon his vision everywhere that he is at a Witches’ Sabbath
he goes, such as at a ball and even and sees his beloved joining in
in the country, where the sound of the grisly spectacle.
thunder seems to symbolize his
gloomy state of mind. Lasting influence
Determined to poison himself Other composers emulated Berlioz’s
with opium, he finds instead combination of music and story-
that the dose merely induces telling, notably Franz Liszt in A
nightmares. In the first of these, he Faust Symphony and 12 symphonic Hector Berlioz
imagines he has been condemned poems (one-movement pieces in
to death for murdering his beloved: the programmatic genre), including The son of a doctor, Berlioz
at the end of the “March to the Mazeppa and Hamlet. Although was born at La Côte-Saint-
some major composers, including André, in southeastern
Bruckner and Brahms, avoided the France, in 1803. At 12, he
Hector Berlioz conducts a deafening form, others such as Tchaikovsky, began studying music, and
orchestra in a caricature published
by the French newspaper L’Illustration, César Franck, Elgar, and Richard at 17, he moved to Paris to
in 1845. Behind him, members of the Strauss mined its possibilities study at the Conservatoire.
audience hold their ears. inventively and exhaustively. ■ In 1833, on his fifth attempt,
Berlioz won the Prix de Rome
(a prestigious scholarship).
By then, he had produced his
Symphonie fantastique to
impress the actress Harriet
Smithson, whom he later
married. In Paris, he enjoyed
limited success as a composer
and so also worked as a
journalist. From 1842, he
toured abroad, finding
audiences in Russia, England,
and Germany more receptive.
He longed for success in the
opera house, but his opera
Benvenuto Cellini (1838)
failed, and his masterpiece
Les Troyens (1858) had only
a partial production during
his lifetime. Suffering
from Crohn’s disease and
depression, he died in 1869.

Other key works
1837 Grande Messe des morts
(Requiem)
1839 Roméo et Juliette
1856–1858 Les Troyens

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