Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14

Teacher's Score: 7/10


When Hector Berlioz was a little over 25 years old, he fell in love with Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson. They wanted to marry, but both families objected to their marriage. Feeling very depressed, he attempted to suicide by drugging himself with opium, but it was to weak to kill him and they married (though the marriage ended in separation). Later, in 1830, Berlioz wrote a program symphony about what he saw when he was drugged. It was called Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14 (Fantastic Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist). An expanded symphony orchestra is playing this song. Berlioz also wrote a program to go with it. An "Idee fixe" (fixed idea) unifies all 5 movements and appears in varied harmony, rhythm, meter, tempo, dynamics, register, adn instrumental colour. It is written in the Romantic era.

The first movement (Reveries, Passions) is in 4/4, C+, and sonata-allegro form. It is when Berlioz sees and remembers passions, depressions, love and emotions before and after seeing his beloved. It introduces the fixed idea as a soaring melody. The second movement (A Ball) is in 3/4, A+, and ternary form (ABA). Berlioz meets Smithson at a ball. The middle section represents the fixed idea in waltz time. The third movement (Scene in the Fields) is in 6/8, F+ and ternary form (ABA). In a summer evening in the country he hears 2 pipers in a pastoral duet. The calmness is interrupted by the appearance of Smithson (is she deceiving him again?). It establishes a mood of "sorrowful loneliness". The fourth movement (March to the Scaffold) is in 4/4 and G-. He thinks that he had killed Smithson and is now led to execution. The fixed idea appears for an instant at the very end, cut of by a harsh ff chord ("the fall of the blade").

The fifth movement (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath) is in 6/8, C+, and in the middle, turns from Larghetto to Allegro. Berlioz sees himself at a witches' Sabbath where ghosts, sorcerers, and all kinds of other monsters come to bury him. Suddenly the fixed idea appears, but it has become vulgar, trivial and grotesque.  Smithson then also joins the dance, and bells toll for the dead... This movement has a nightmarish mood and unusual instrumental effects. It opens on soft muted strings in Allegro, which evoke an infernal atmosphere which sounds like "the unearthly sounds, groans, shrieks of laughter". Then, the fixed idea appears in Allegro. It is altered so it sounds like it is mocking someone. The infernal mood is heightened with the use of bells for the dead and the traditional religious chant "Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) is introduced first in bassoons, then twice as fast in brass. The climax is when the Dies Irae and the satanic Witches' Dance are combined, which leads to an excitingly dramatic ending with col legno (for stringed instruments, tapping strings with the wooden part of the bow) and loud statements of Dies Irae leading into the final cadence.

Teacher's Comments:
FIRST PARAGRAPH CLEAR AND CONCISE:
- lovesick artist poisoned with opium, not himself poisoned with opium
- Who does the fixed idea represent?
- definition of fixed idea
- other inspirations
Last paragraph:
- define "Dies Irae"