Berlioz originally wrote for 1 serpent and one ophicleide, but quickly switched to two ophicleides after the serpent proved to be difficult to use. More formal statements of the idée fixe twice interrupt the waltz. [6] The idée fixe returns in the middle of the movement, played by oboe and flute. When Berlioz saw Irish actress Harriet Smithson for the first time, he fell passionately in love. This movement can be divided into sections according to tempo changes: There are a host of effects, including trilling in the woodwinds and col legno in the strings. The main theme, heard transformed in each movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, is called the Select one: a. subject. He rented rooms near her and sent her letters – but to no avail. Of all Berlioz’s works it is his Symphonie Fantastique that reveals his compulsion towards the Romantic, but also showcases his full ability as a musical craftsman. In your own words, summarize Heine's comments describing the first performance he saw "six years ago," and the emotions which Heine believed the "Witches' Sabbath" was intended to depict. Berlioz wrote to a friend: “You don’t know what love is, whatever you may say. the fifth: Which of the following is NOT true about Hector Berlioz? You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral.”. c. the actress Harriet Smithson. At the age of 23, his unrequited (at first) love for the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Constance Smithson was the inspiration for his Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz was smitten and wrote her an impassioned letter – Smithson did not reply. The Symphony is as much about Berlioz as it is about music. The movement is the only one to feature the two harps, providing the glamour and sensual richness of the ball, and may also symbolize the object of the young man's affection. Central to the work is the "idée fixe" (“fixed idea”), a recurring theme of rising longing and falling despair – a depiction of gripping obsession and the epitome of Romanticism. Symphonie Fantastique was premiered in 1830 but Smithson did not hear the work until 1832, when she realised she might be the inspiration for it. Happy ever after? For Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz was inspired in part by Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Berlioz, like a lot of composers, loved the ladies and his Symphonie fantastique was famously inspired by his stormy relationship with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. I: Rêveries, passions II: Un Bal III: Scène aux champs IV: Marche au supplice V: Songe d’une Nuit du Sabbat See also Texts and Documents; Berlioz and his music: self-borrowings. The main theme, heard transformed in each movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, is called the true The transformations of the fixed idea in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique take on literary as well as musical significance. Symphonie fantastique is a piece of program music that tells the story of an artist gifted with a lively imagination who has poisoned himself with opium in the depths of despair because of hopeless, unrequited love. The two finally met and were married on 3 October 1833. SCENE IN THE FIELDS; INTRO – A – B – A – CODA; F MAJOR. Movement I. Symphonie fantastique: The young musician's passionate daydream about love and suffering. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. Distant sound of thunder... solitude... silence. Introduction: A placid, pastoral … Why is it human nature to want what we can’t have? However, their marriage became increasingly bitter, and they eventually separated after several years of unhappiness.[5]. 470). Berlioz also received a commission from the French government, for which he wrote the Grande messe des morts in 1837 and the Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in 1840 . Liszt later transcribed the entire Symphonie fantastique for piano to enable more people to hear it. Before the musical depiction of his execution, there is a brief, nostalgic recollection of the idée fixe in a solo clarinet, as though representing the last conscious thought of the soon-to-be-executed man.[2]. The transitions from this state of dreamy melancholy, interrupted by occasional upsurges of aimless joy, to delirious passion, with its outbursts of fury and jealousy, its returns of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations – all this forms the subject of the first movement. 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