Berlioz conducting Photo: Public Domain
The French composer Berlioz used opium to help fire his imagination in composing a piece that ripped through the classical music world like an earthquake. The epic Symphonie Fantastique sees the Berlioz utilising one of the largest orchestras of its time. Whether because, or in spite of his altered mental state, Berlioz’s 1830 masterpiece continues to delight, beguile and even frighten audiences to this day.
Also on the programme is the sequel Berlioz composed to Symphonie Fantastique, titled Lelio or The Return to Life. In typical Berlioz over-the-top fashion this was devised for an invisible orchestra - the musicians were to perform behind a lowered curtain.
Performing and narrating Lelio is Outrageous Fortune and Shortland Street actor Andrew Laing, with tenor Declan Cudd, baritone Daniel O’Connor and the Orpheus Choir of Wellington.
These two works are rarely performed together.
Programme:
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique;
BERLIOZ: Lélio, or The Return to Life
Andrew Laing (actor), Declan Cudd (tenor), Daniel O'Connor (baritone), Orpheus Choir, Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
Find out more and listen to this performance here:
BERLIOZ: Symphonie Fantastique
Harriet Smithson Photo: Public Domain
In 1827, Hector Berlioz attended a performance of Hamlet and was smitten by the actress playing Ophelia, Harriet Smithson. When she ignored his persistent fan mail, he was driven “by that delirium that takes possession of all one’s faculties” to write this symphony instead. It is the epitome of a Romantic symphony, not only in its imaginative coloration but also in its balance of narrative line against formal symphonic structure. The structure adjusts to the work’s dramatic needs, having five movements instead of the traditional four.
- Dreams, Passions. The artist’s desire for the beloved is represented by a yearning motif around which this movement is built; this recurring idea, or idée fixe, appears throughout the symphony, giving it unity.
- A Ball. Thrilling, glittering, delirious music describes the scene in which he imagines his beloved dancing.
- A scene in the country. A peaceful reverie, a vision of what love could be. It opens with a duet between oboe and cor anglais, two souls calling to each other. It closes with only one; the male voice of the cor anglais, repeating the calls – this time they remain unanswered but for a warning rumble of distant thunder.
- March to the Scaffold. The artist, bereft, takes opium and falls into a terrible dream where he has murdered his beloved and must suffer the penalty.
- Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath. The nightmare continues, underpinned by the Dies Irae theme and that of his beloved, the idée fixe transformed now into a mocking parody. (Notes: Erica Challis)
Recorded 12 April 2019, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
Related:
BERLIOZ: Lélio, or The Return to Life
- Le Pêcheur. ‘The Fisherman’, based on a ballad by Goethe. A Lorelei-type water-spirit tempts a fisherman into the water to drown
- Choeur des ombres – Chorus of the Shades
- Chanson de brigands – Pirate Song, celebrating a life of freedom and action
- Chant de bonheur – Song of Bliss – in this case, love’s bliss
- La harpe éolienne – Memories – the artist imagines himself in a peaceful grave under a tree
- Fantasie sur la Tempête de Shakespeare – Calling on his true muses, Music and Shakespeare, the artist creates a work to honour both
Hector Berlioz Photo: Public Domain
A year after his Symphonie Fantastique, Hector Berlioz felt moved to take his artist-hero Lélio’s story further. Left in a death-like swoon at the end of Symphonie Fantastique the hero revives and recovers.
In this work, Berlioz breaks with symphonic structure entirely. Nor does he use some other familiar form, such as an opera or an oratorio. It is a monodrama, of ‘melologue’. It tells how the artist Lélio regains consciousness and begins to cast around for a meaning to his life. Is he an artist? A poet? A musician? We are to imagine the music as a window into the artist’s mind; according to Berlioz, all but the final movement should be performed behind a curtain, symbolising the separation between dream and reality.
The work grows from the simplicity of an individual voice singing a folksong with piano accompaniment, to larger forces – a choir, an orchestra, then all together. A narrator leads us through the artist’s thoughts, which echo some of the concerns of Romanticism. If to live is to suffer, should one long for the repose of death? Or yearn for love, which can be fickle or sublime? Should one seek a life of action? What could the artist learn from his close brush with death? What could he learn from nature, or from his muses in poetry and music?
Andrew Laing Photo: Supplied
The final movement is a fantasia on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, in which the artist finds his solution: to draw on the genius and inspiration of the past to create new art, transforming it through music. (Notes: Erica Challis)
Recorded 12 April 2019, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
Related:
Performed in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington 12 April 2019, Recorded by RNZ Concert.
