Berlioz was a crazy man. He was always obsessed with women, which isn't so crazy in itself, but what is crazy is the measures that he took to get his hands on the women that he wanted. When one woman cheated on him, Berlioz equipped himself with a myriad of weapons and made a complex plot to kill her. Eventually, he travelled to where she was living with her new husband, disguised as a maid, and then changed his mind about killing her- rather anti-climatic, don't you think?
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique was written in his quest to get his hands on a woman- a Shakespearian actress named Harriet Smithson, to be exact. Berlioz immediately fell in love with her when he saw her perform the part of Ophelia, and wrote this symphony about the object of his obsession. He got his friends to practically force her to attend a performance of it, and at the end, he proposed to her. When she appeared indecisive, he drank poison and said that he would only drink the antidote if she agreed to marry him! (I'm not sure if I got all of the details correct, but he was a pretty crazy guy...) Harriet finally agreed to marry Berlioz, but she couldn't live up to the high ideals that Berlioz had held of her, so Berlioz found himself a new woman. Harriet eventually died of alcoholism.
Symphonie Fantastique is programmatic and has five movements, each telling a "chapter" in the story. (By the way, "Symphonie Fantastique" is actually its subtitle- the official title of the symphony is "An Episode in the Life of the Artist.") In the first movement, "Reveries, Passions," Berlioz is listless and unhappy until he meets Harriet. In the second movement, "A Ball," the two dance together. In the third movement, "Scene in the Fields," he sees her with a shepherd boy. In the fourth movement, "March to the Scaffold," he dreams that he has killed her and is awaiting execution. In the fifth and final movement, "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath," he dreams that Harriet comes back as a witch to haunt him. Strange story, don't you think? It certainly presented multiple themes that were common in Romantic-era art and literature- love, death and the supernatural.
Berlioz being Berlioz, he couldn't just write a work about Harriet using just a small ensemble. No, he had to use a giant ensemble, using a myriad of common and uncommon instruments. In his Symphonie Fantastique, he wrote for piccolo, flute, oboes, Eb clarinet, C clarinet, bassoons, trumpets, horns, valved horns, trombones, ophecleides (the predecessor to the tuba), violin I and II, viola, cello, double bass, chimes, bass drum, timpani and cymbals. Such an array of instruments allowed him to make use of a variety of tone colours in Symphonie Fantastique.
In my analysis, I'm going to focus on the 5th movement, "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath."
The movement has five main parts: an introduction, the Dies Irae, the Round Dance, the Dies Irae and Round Dance together and a coda. Throughout all of the parts, plenty of chromaticism can be heard, as well as extreme dynamics (there's a pppp in there somewhere!). 6/8 rhythms are used to give the music a dancelike effect, which can have other side effects, as we shall soon see.
Throughout all five movements of the symphony, Harriet is represented by a theme known as the idée fixe. Since Harriet is meant to be a witch in this movement, the idée fixe is distorted to reflect this. Firstly, it's played on shrill instruments like Eb clarinet and piccolo. It is also played in a fast jig 6/8 rhythm with lots of trills. Both of these changes make the idée fixe sound grotesque.
The Dies Irae ("Day of Wrath"), a traditional Gregorian chant used in funeral masses, is used in this movement, giving a sense of foreboding. It is first played on the low instruments, which makes it sound ominous. Eventually it is given to higher and higher instruments and played using shorter note values (a technique known as "diminution"), making it sound more and more trivial each time.
The Witches' Round Dance is hinted at during the Dies Irae through the use of small fragments of the Round Dance theme. When the Round Dance gets going properly, however, it gets going in a fugue, adding to the ritualistic nature of such a dance.
Other musical ideas can be heard in this work. In the introduction, you can hear sounds that represent shrieking and witches' heckling. There are loud chords heard every so often throughout the piece that could represent a witches' shout. Last but not least, there are the bells that could represent a clock tolling midnight.
I probably need to expand my analysis further, but I'll do it when I've got a score in front of me. Right now, it's 8.56pm and I have orchestra tomorrow, so I need to go to sleep. TTFN!
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