Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) Symphonie fantastique Op 14 Rêveries Un Bal Scène aux Champs Marche au Supplice Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat 1830 was a year of revolution in Paris and nothing could be more typical than that it was precisely this year that Hector Berlioz threw his bomb "Symphonie fantastique" into the tired musical life that was dominated by today more or less forgotten composers like Spontini and Meyerbeer. Immediately, the 26-year-old came into the limelight, he became a symbol of everything new. By this time, Berlioz had fallen in love with Shakespeare, whose Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet had just experienced their first performances in Paris in 1827 – or was his passion rather the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who played the leading roles in these dramas? Although he had a serious love affair with Camille Moke in the meantime, it was Harriet he was obsessed with. He was also obsessed during the two months he worked on the symphony. He completed this autobiographical musical confession on April 16, and gave the work the subtitle "an episode from the life of an artist". It is thus a program symphony, a five-movement work with an autobiographical, narrative plot that can be followed. It's about the despairing love of a young hypersensitive musician - the theme of the beloved keeps coming up. But when Berlioz described the fourth movement, there were violent protests. Here he understands that he has been insulted and therefore now poisons himself with opium. In the nightmare that follows, he sees himself having murdered his beloved, and now he is led through the streets to his own execution. It would get even worse in the finale's "witches' sabbath", where Harriet is now found among the diabolical creatures dancing an orgiastic dance in which the Gregorian Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) sequence of the death mass also plays a big role. The director of the concert hall could not stomach these blasphemous excesses, so suddenly Berlioz found himself having engaged 130 musicians, but lacking a venue. There was nothing to do but postpone the performance. In the end, the problems had been solved and the premiere took place on December 5, 1830, and the success was unheard of.