Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, composed in 1830, helped lead into the new genre of programme music. Much like the dialogue before a song in opera, the programme was designed to be read by the audience before hearing the symphony. Berlioz’s program was an overview of the story that the music portrayed, or as Holoman wrote “To explain the context of the drama represented in his [Berlioz’s] work…”. For an instrumental drama, written context is needed if the listener is to interpret the meaning within the music that the composer intended. Although Schumann wrote about how he and his friend, whose “…two visions coincided even to the exact city.” about a march without the need of a written prompt, I feel that perhaps the average listener