All this fuss is about Harriet Smithson! (Pictured here). A nineteenth century Shakespearean actress whom Hector Berlioz fell madly in love with and obsessed over. And composed a symphony about.
The symphony from 1830 that we're going to hear today has the long title:
Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties
(Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist, in Five Parts))
Symphonie Fantastique (notice that it's in French, so everything is SPELLED FUNNY) is a program symphony, i.e., it has a story that goes with it, describing the music of each of the five movements. The artist, the protagonist of this drama envisions the ideal woman and falls madly in love with her. By the third movement, in an opium-induced hallucination, he imagines her cheating on him. In the fourth, he imagines he has killed her and is being executed by guillotine.. And in the fifth, he imagines himself in hell, witness to a witches' Sabbath, a black mass, his beloved's pretense of innocence gone as she joins "the diabolical orgy."
More below...
I originally intended to use this symphony as the followup to my series on Beethoven. Let's recall where Beethoven's Ninth, premiered in 1824, left off. Berlioz and many of the other important composers of the day were in attendance. It was the culmination of Beethoven's work in the symphony, the apogee of Weimar classicism.
It also represented the end of an era. Composers after Beethoven were reluctant to compose symphonies, anymore, because, as some put it, Beethoven had tapped that well dry. There wasn't anything left to be done with it that Beethoven hadn't already done better. Better, then, to explore different musical forms. And that's what many of the new romantic composers would do.
How brave then it was of Berlioz to compose this when he did. Symphonie Fantastique has got real brass balls. The other romantics that came soon after Beethoven, like Schumann and Mendelssohn and Schubert, did nothing even remotely as crazy as this. Consider for a moment this: That in 1830, it ends with a fucking BLACK MASS. Not just that, he quotes liturgical music (the Dies Irae, used in traditional Catholic funerals) to add to the mockery. There's no happy ending here, no hero who bursts in and rescues us from moral risk. The hero gets
executed for murdering a chick he had the hots for. How lurid can you get? 1830. And, sure, that part is all imaginary... because the hero is high on drugs. We have drugs, sex, stalking, violence against women, Satanism, blasphemy, infidelity, murder, execution -- and all of it is portrayed through the metaphorical medium of pure music!
Only six years after Beethoven's Ninth.
At the same time that Berlioz was composing the Symphonie Fantastique, that same year, Berlioz won the Prix de Rome prize for his cantata, Sardanapal. Prix de Rome was a sort of annual French Pulitzer/scholarship award program that was begun in 1663 by Louis XIV and was carried on until 1968. Berlioz had submitted some of his best work the year before and lost to works that he considered miserably inferior. Having observed this, in 1830, he decided to win by giving the judges the kind of bullshit that they wanted.
August 1830: Our cantatas were played -- on the piano as always -- before the two Aeopagi .. and since both of them clearly recognized that I was converted to truth and sanity on the strength of a piece, Sardanapale, (which I have since destroyed), they bestowed on me, at long last, the prize. I had been deeply disappointed in previous years when I had won nothing. Now I felt little pleasure... But I began to appreciate the advantages of the award.
Berlioz Volume One: The Making of an Artist, by David Cairns, page 410
(c/o Google Books):
How poor it was, we cannot tell. Berlioz himself professed a low opinion of it... Obviously this was, with him, an article of faith, given his views on the Academy and the Prix de Rome competition. He had written, perforce, their kind of music; and the same Academy that had given the thumbs down to Cleopatre -- very much his kind of music -- had awarded Sardanapale the prize. By definition the piece was mediocre. Typical that Cherubini should see it as proof of his having made substantial progress since the previous year, when in fact he had "reduced himself by half" to write it!
Selling out is a sign of maturity, as we all tell ourselves. I applaud Berlioz for doing what it takes to get the money. I can certainly remember many times in my life when I wish I had had less scruples and more horse sense. But I love Berlioz's sneering resentment at the judges. And please note the comment that he has "since destroyed" the piece. Only fragments survive. A pity. I looked hard for it online.
Sardanapale still had other uses though. It was an award winning composition, mediocre or not, so it went on the same bill with the Symphonie Fantastique.
Harriet and Hector
In 1827, Berlioz attended a performance of Hamlet and first laid eyes on Harriet Smithson. And fell in love, deep French love, gotta kill myself over her love, gotta gotta gotta have her now dammit love. "Let me take you to the Casbah." Books have been written tracking his obsession with her. She was Berlioz's own Maude Gonne, albeit more talented than Yeats' girlfriend.
Correspondence September 11, 1827:
I was at the first night of Hamlet. In the role of Ophelia, I saw Harriet Smithson... The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent, nay, her dramatic genius, was equaled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted. I lost the power of sleep and with it all my former animation, all taste for my favorite studies, all ability to work. I wandered aimlessly about the Paris streets and the neighboring plains."
Rather than just getting over it, by 1829, his heart became "a furnace of raging fire:"
"It's a virgin forest that lightning has set ablaze. At times, the fire appears to abate, then a gust of wind, a fresh flaring up, the cry of trees engulfed in the flames, reveal its terrible power of devastation."
By February 1830, his heart was the "pounding piston of a steam engine:"
"She is still in London, and yet I feel her about me, all my memories awake and combined to rend me. I listen to the beating of my heart, its pulsations shake me like the pounding pistons of a steam engine. Each muscle in my body quivers with pain... Futile! ... Horrible! ... I was on the point of beginning my big symphony [Symphonie Fantastique] in which the course of my infernal passion is to be depicted; I have the whole thing in my head, but I can write nothing... We must wait."
All this over a women he hadn't even met, socially. He finally would meet her, the following year, after somebody politely pointed out to Harriet Smithson that there was this composer guy named Hector who was COMPOSING WHOLE LONG SYMPHONIES ABOUT HOW MUCH HE WAS IN LOVE WITH HER.
And they got married! And they both lived happily ever after, or really, happily for about four years.
I wish I wasn't such a terrible cynic. I could probably type all this without laughing my ass off. I suspect many of us, maybe most of us, but not all, have been drastically head-over-heels at some time for somebody we didn't have the courage to introduce ourselves to, like Charlie Brown with the little red-haired girl. I remember when I was in 11th grade. There was a girl in my math class who was a flags girl. Flags girls are sort of like cheerleaders, only lower on the totem pole. They wave little flags around. I still remember her shoes. They were sneakers that had little round balls of fluff on them. She used to kick her foot nervously on the floor under her desk like a dog with an itch. Whenever I think of her, and I still do, it's that shoe with the fluff ball that I think of first. Actually, she had a bad case of acne, but that just endeared her to me even more, because *I*, deep soul that I am, saw through the zits to the true beauty underneath.
I decided she was going to be the first girl I ever asked on a date -- and I never even made a serious introduction. I watched all the other guys in the class who were bolder than me fawn all over her, and I hated myself for being so craven. So I can sympathize with poor Hector. I can even sympathize with the part about getting what you want and being disappointed with it. There is more to be learned about life in that sorry and mundane tidbit than in the rest of it.
The "Idee Fixe"
In the program, Berlioz describes the Idee Fixe, or fixed idea, or fixation. The symphony revolves around a single melody, this idee fixe, which shows up again and again in different forms. Now, before you say, "Oh, this must be just like Beethoven's Fifth with its Da-da-da-DAH," no, it's not, because the theme here is a long melody, not just a simple four note motif. In fact, the melody itself is long enough I can break it up into three parts that are sometimes used independently.
The melody doesn't ever quite make a single clean appearance, though! It's first appearance, in the first movement, is somewhat vaguely-formed. You get the feeling that there is a real idee fixe theme in the symphony some where, but you've only seen its shadows.
I decided to make a spoiler clip of excerpts of some of its appearances so we can see just how the main theme is transformed.
I've labeled the appearances. The first one is heard early (but not at the beginning) of the first movement. Graceful, ethereal.
The second excerpt is heard near the end of the first movement, and although it's the same theme, it is clearly different in character, faster, more manic.
The third excerpt comes from the second movement (which we will also hear today), the waltz theme. Don't give up if you dont' hear the similarity at first. It's the same thing. You don't have to dwell on it. Just use your ears.
The fourth excerpt comes from the third movement (which we hear next week). It may be more difficult to identify it as the main theme because, among other things, it's been made much slower with different emphases. Same advice. Don't dwell, use your ears.
The fifth excerpt comes from the final movement (next week). The theme has deliberately made darkly comical and vulgar.
So let's get to the music!
Quick note: There are five movements, and as is often the case, the first movement is the most complicated and hardest to explain. I'll go further and say it's not even the best movement in the symphony. So don't give up if you don't like it. It's the set up for the rest of the symphony.
Berlioz's written program for the first movement:
The author imagines that a young vibrant musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer[2] has called the wave of passions [la vague des passions], sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her. By a strange anomaly, the beloved image never presents itself to the artist’s mind without being associated with a musical idea, in which he recognizes a certain quality of passion, but endowed with the nobility and shyness which he credits to the object of his love. This melodic image and its model keep haunting him ceaselessly like a double idée fixe. This explains the constant recurrence in all the movements of the symphony of the melody which launches the first allegro. 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.
Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, first movement. "Reveries - Passions." The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ricardo Muti (a live analogue recording)
This movement is kind-of, sort-of, Sonata-Allegro form, but too different to warrant my handy blue graphic, so I'll try to break it down as it goes. The music all evolves and emerges from the one main theme.
INTRODUCTION (0:00)
The violins enter with a slow introduction, wistful, with a touch of melancholy. We can tell this isn't Beethoven. It's not as dense. It's more nebulous. The violins are way up in the high part of their range, making it more airy. Long soaring notes. Very operatic. Makes me think of the final act of Verdi's La Traviata.
At 1:47, the tempo and the mood pick up a bit. At 2:27, we get just a glimmer of the main theme, but it's only a glimmer, part of the tease. At 2:50, the wistful/melancholy theme returns. At the 4 minute mark, it begins to fade away, leaving an empty space into which something new will come.
At 4:27, the mood drastically changes, becoming more positive, more expectant of something coming. It shimmers with life, and the orchestra reaches towards a mini-climax, settings us up for...
EXPOSITION (5:33)
5:33. The main theme, the "idee fixe" appears in its fullest form. Only in the violins, without any chords to back them up. The lower strings provide the only accompaniment: awkward, choppy, and with a kind of urgency that is in stark contrast to the watery main theme that the violins are playing. At 6:14, the music becomes agitated, excited... and we transition from the key of the symphony, C major, to G major. Just like Sonata-Allegro form, except there is no second theme -- just the "idee fixe" theme transformed a little (you can hear parts of it in the woodwinds), and changed to G major.
This whole section is repeated at 7:05.
DEVELOPMENT SECTION (8:17)
The second time around, the tail end of the exposition lingers and then and takes on another life, as it begins to evolve. We begin a series of key changes.
At 8:59, the strings begin marching up and down the staircase, restlessly, accompanied by wails from the brass. And then it comes to a sudden... STOP! (At 9:23)
RECAPITULATION (9:33)
I'm going to call it that although we're in G, not in the main key of the symphony, C. Like Sibelius in his concerto a couple of weeks ago, Berlioz is beginning his recap in the second key, saving the return to the home key for right near the end.
Out of the silence of that full stop at 9:23), the main theme returns (9:33) in the woodwinds, in yet another form, although recognizable. At 10:30, It reaches towards a climax in G... And is thwarted! Having run into a wall, it bounces back... And ahhhh, finally, at 10:51, we are back in the home key of C. The tension is released. The mood of the music becomes comforting, relaxed, peaceful.
At 11:59, having achieved this stable plateau, the key starts to wander, and it wanders RECKLESSLY here, just absolutely fucking beautiful! Again, I remind you, this is just six years after Beethoven's Ninth, but there is heavy harmonic weirdness here that would have troubled Beethoven and even given Wagner problems. It's setting us up for the climax of the movement...
THE LAST FULL STATEMENT OF THE MAIN THEME(12:33) -- and it's totally manic and shrill and bonkers!
CODA (13:50)
As this manic version of the main theme fades away, a new transformation of it appears, but only a part of it, just the first few notes, combined with gentle cradling chords, that escort us out of the first movement.
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Berlioz's program for the second movement:
The artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in life, in the tumult of a festive party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beautiful sights of nature, yet everywhere, whether in town or in the countryside, the beloved image keeps haunting him and throws his spirit into confusion.
Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, first movement. "Reveries - Passions." The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ricardo Muti (a live analogue recording)
A much simpler movement! A waltz, this time.
Introduction (0:00)
The movement begins with a short introduction, one that may sound familiar, that "shimmering" fragment of music (it includes harps) that was used in the first movement to introduce the main theme. Here it is again, being used as an introduction to the waltz main theme.
The harps are really great in this movement.
Waltz main theme (0:36)
A beautiful, winding melody of many short notes. Addictive, too. It's derived from the idee fixe theme, although it's not obvious at first.
And unexpectedly, IT'S HER! HERE! (2:02)
Across the ballroom, floating in her lovely gown... Does she see me? Holy crap!!! My heart is a pounding piston!
There's no mistaking, this time, that this is the idee fixe theme, emerging from the flute. The violins are playing very quickly but softly, what we call tremolo, basically shaking their wrists as if with palsey, to create that tense and hushed sensation. The main waltz theme joins it, and the two melodies, intertwining, dance together.
Waltz main theme again (3:02)
The main waltz theme resumes control and leads the dance. This time a little more ornamented.
Alternating section (4:30)
The tempo speeds up here, with new material. It feels like a coda, as if we are approaching the end. But no, we get...
One more glimpse of our beloved...
Ahh.... The idee fixe theme. Just a horn and a clarinet. Striking in their simplicity.
And NOW the coda -- and we're done with the second movement!
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NEXT WEEK: We'll finish the Symphonie Fantastique with the third, fourth, and the spectacular final fifth movement, "The Witches' Sabbath." Stay tuned because the best is yet to come.
I'm thinking about Schubert's Ninth for the week after that. If any of you guys want to slip a diary in, let me know so we can schedule it.