Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

As the most famous romantic composer, Hector Berlioz with his Symphonie fantastique is always considered as the hallmark of romantic composition. In alignment with the essential qualities of romanticism at his contemporaries in related fields, painting, literature and artistic style, his music is structured full of vivid and intense emotional expression. This characteristic of music and symphony can be seen in other composers during that time most of whom befriended Berlioz: Schumann, Liszt to name just a few.

The strong yet desperate feeling infused into his Symphonie came from Berlioz’s ongoing but unfulfilling courtship to Simthon, which coupled with widely-spread social negative comments on him had later turned into a spell for him and
led to self-doubt and pessimistic despair. It is intertwined with the artistic development of romanticism found in Confession of a Child of the Century by French romantic poet Musset, Confession of an English Opium-Eater by English romantic novelist Thomas De Quincy, and the poetic epic Frost by German romantic poet Gothe.

One of the common trait in these works is the evidence of plot archetype. It is the significant shift from absolute music to program music. The same can be found in the many works of Gioacchino Rossini, such as Una Voce Poco Fa from The Barber of Serville, which is regarded as his master piece of opera buffa genre. This artistic form is also the distillation of plots into music, but in a comic way compared with the artistic style of the majority of romantic composers and writers in that age.

The music “Symphonie Fantastique” was on the autumn night in the year of 1827 when Berlioz was watching the Shakespeare tragic scene performed by a British troupe in the Paris Opera House. He was deeply attracted by the demeanor and beauty of Harriet Smithson, who played the role of Juliette, and he was then caught in a one-sided love with her. He started to go to her performance every single day. He wrote several love letters to her but all of them were rejected. To get her attention, Berlioz even set up a personal performance for her, but Smithson did not attend. Since then, he gave up all hope and was despair about love. He was on drug, trying to suicide to extricate himself. Eventually this agony stirred up his crazy creative enthusiasm and helped him finished his first great work of his life ---- Symphonie Fantastique.

This music was played by four different sections of instruments. The first group is the Woodwinds Section, including piccolo, flute, oboe, bassoon and clarinet. The second group is the Brass Section, consisting the French horn, trumpet, tenor trombones, bass trombone and tuba. The third group is the String Section, which includes the violin, the viola, the cello and the bass. Last but not least, the Percussion Section, including the Timpani, Gong, Drums and cymbals. The leading instruments that played the main melody are the violin, the cello, the flute and the oboe.

Similar to Beethoven’s music of “The Pastoral Symphony”, Berlioz wrote a descriptive title and a short comment for each of the five movements just like a synopsis of a play. This synopsis did not restrain our thinking, instead it provide more detail for the audience and enrich imagination. The five titles for the movements are “Reveries – Passions”, “A Ball”, “Scene in the Fields”, “March to the Scaffold”, and “Dream of the Night of the Sabbath”. These titles present a new appearance of music during the romantic time period. More importantly, the “Symphonie Fantastique” is narrative, dramatic and melodic.

The “Symphonie Fantastique” is narrative.
Berlioz divided the music into five movements, and each of the movements represent a time period. The first movement “Reveries – Passions” is when he first met Smithson, which showed his desire of love, his melancholy, and his happiness. The second movement “A Ball” showed the social scene between the upper class, where the composer met his true love. The third movement “Scene in the Field” showed an idyllic imagery. The depressed and the awful pain and longing of the composer can be felt. The fourth movement “March to the Scaffold” is a tragic march. The composer dreamed of killing his lover and he was sentence to death with the gloomy, grim, solemn, glorious march mixed with the noisy shouting. At the end of the movement, the lover theme was appear again, just like the last idea that suddenly comes to his mind before death, but was then interrupt by the deadly blow. The last movement “Dream of the Night of the Sabbath” is an absurd movement. The composer found himself in a demon’s banquet. Ghosts and monsters were gather for his funeral. Strange sound of blatant, moaning, grinning and shouting were mixed together. Then the lover theme appear again. She also attend the banquet and join the monsters. Finally, the knell rang, religious music was played, but with the roundelay of the monsters. The whole piece of music is like a story, with the description of the Berlioz, the whole process of the story can be imagined and the music
created an atmosphere for the story. The mentality of the composer had been revealed.

The “Symphonie Fantastique” is dramatic.
In this piece, the composer was passionate towards her lover. However, this one-sided love caught him into an awful pain and a crazy jealousy. During the ball, the field, the image of lover appeared for several times. She follows the composer everywhere and this morbid relation trapped the composer. His “love” turned into “hate”. He dreamed of himself killing his lover and sentenced death. In order to show this with music, Berlioz used lots of Brass instruments and Percussion instruments to create a gloomy scene. During this serious atmosphere, a unique tempo and a weird melody showed the abnormal psychology of the composer. Soon afterward, the whole brass section presented a new theme of loud, strong, music in tempo. Give the audience a feeling of majesty but with the sense of fierce and cruel. At the end of the movement, the solo clarinet played the lover theme again, representing that the shadow of the lover flash across the composer’s mind. However before the clarinet finish playing, the whole orchestra cut off the clarinet. During the rolling of the brass and percussion, the composer was sentenced death. After his death, he was dramatically placed in his funeral held by the ghosts and the monsters. This is a absurd movement that is full of uproar and harsh sound. The sharp vibrato played by the string mixed with the howl of the brass and the screaming of the high-pitched woodwind created a scary atmosphere for the audience. When
the death knell rang, is the end of the world. Bassoon and Tuba played the funeral songs of the middle ages. However, this holy music did not hold-back the evil. The “Symphonie Fantastique” was ended as the demons and monsters dancing in riotous revelry.

Just when the music started playing, I was appealed to the graceful, delicate recording sound, and the performance of the orchestra. The performance of the orchestra is vast and mighty, the sound came out from their instrument is loud but without squeak. During some melodious part, especially the second movement “A Ball”, the orchestra sufficiently played out the traits of the sound of the Brass instrument and Woodwinds instrument. With the techniques of orchestration of Berlioz, the harmony of the instrument gave the audience a dreamy and misty feeling.