Ordinarily, we know symphonies as symphony number whatever in whatever key. If we know them by a nickname, such as “Bear” or “Jupiter,” the composer seldom supplied it. Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique broke all kinds of molds. For one thing, it is the first of four of his symphonies, but not a one bears a number, and only two have the word “symphony” in the title at all. How did he become such a bull in a china shop?

Early life of Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was the eldest child of a prominent physician, born in 1803 in the French town of La Côte-St.-André, northwest of Grenoble. He was home-schooled and showed special interest in French and Latin literature (especially Virgil) and geography (especially travel books). He learned to play flute and guitar, which spurred an interest in music first awakened when he heard Mass. Later, he found a copy of Rameau’s theory treatise and devoured it.

Two other aspects of his later life showed up in childhood: extreme emotional reactions to literature and events in his life and a romantic interest in a girl who paid no attention to him.

At 17, Berlioz very much wanted to pursue music. His father expected him to follow his career path into medicine. Berlioz dutifully enrolled in medical school in Paris, even though he hated the thought of studying it. In La Côte, Berlioz had known only the smaller works of minor composers. In Paris, he started attending the Opéra and was especially attracted to Gluck. He spent as much time in the Conservatory library as he could manage and eventually abandoned medicine. In retaliation, his father cut off his allowance.

In 1822, Berlioz began to take composition lessons from Jean-François Le Sueur and became a full-time student at the Conservatory in 1826. Soon enough, he became well-known in Paris for works that, according to the Conservatory establishment, betrayed dangerous tendencies. Among them was Symphonie fantastique.

Three emotional thunderstrokes molded the final shape of the symphony: hearing Beethoven’s Third Symphony, reading Goethe’s Faust, and seeing a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Although Berlioz knew no English, he could appreciate Shakespeare’s dramatic genius. And he also noticed the actress who played Ophelia, Harriet Smithson.

Harriet Smithson and the genesis of Symphonie fantastique

It took him long study to grasp what Shakespeare meant to him. His infatuation with Smithson was immediate. “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. That is all I can say.”

Berlioz actually began to stalk Smithson. He wrote numerous letters, sent flowers, and even rented an apartment near hers to keep an eye on her. She refused to meet him, which only inflamed his lust for her. His infatuation began to work its way into several of his compositions, Symphonie fantastique being the best known of them.

Meanwhile, Berlioz applied four times for the Prix de Rome. The first three entries, written in the style Berlioz was becoming well known for, only reminded the judges of his radicalism. For the fourth, he wrote a suitably bland piece and won. By that time, though, he had lost interest. He was already famous, and the Symphonie fantastique was a great success, although Smithson declined to attend.

At first, writing the symphony seemed to exorcise Berlioz’ infatuation with her. He became engaged to pianist Camille Moke, and they intended to marry when he returned from Rome. Instead, she broke off the engagement within three weeks after his arrival there to marry a richer suitor. Berlioz actually plotted to murder both of them but then changed his mind.

Meanwhile, one of his friends invited Smithson to attend a performance of Lélio, a sequel to Symphonie fantastique. She recognized that he had written both works about her and agreed to meet him. Over the objections of both families, they married in October 1833, to the eventual regret of both of them.

Antecedents and radical originality

As early as the Renaissance, composers occasionally used instrumental music to depict something non-musical, such as a battle or some natural scene. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (Pastoral), which Berlioz knew well, took a new approach. Beethoven was less interested in painting a picture than in expressing feelings about nature.

Carl Maria von Weber had a love story set in the time of the Crusades in mind as he composed his Konzertstück op. 79. He told one of his students about the program but did not provide it for audiences when he performed it. If Berlioz knew the piece, he probably was unaware of the program.

So Symphonie fantastique is the first instrumental piece attempting to narrate a story, for which the composer provided a written description to the audience. And the story is strange and unsettling, to say the least.

Precedents for the macabre aspects of Symphonie fantastique include the finale of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Weber’s Der Freischütz, and Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” but no previous musical work could have prepared early audiences for the symphony’s last two movements. On the other hand, Berlioz prepared the way for the eeriest works of Liszt, Mussorgsky, Scriabin, and others.

Berlioz’ orchestration treatise marked him as the world’s leading expert on effective instrumentation. He was always much more interested in expressing emotion and inventing special orchestral effects than in such standard musical ideals as structure, melody, harmony, and counterpoint. That focus explains why so many other composers recognized his genius but still dismissed him as lacking in talent and musical feelings.

Symphonie fantastique offers numerous unprecedented orchestral effects. To begin with, it requires a much larger orchestra than any previous symphony.

The program and structure of Symphonie fantastique

Like Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, Symphonie fantastique has five movements instead of the normal four. Berlioz gave each movement a descriptive title. He provided at least three versions of the program, one for the 1830 premiere, one for the first printed edition in 1845, and another in 1855. Here, with a brief description of the music of each movement, is the 1845 program.

The composer’s intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following program* must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression.

 *This program should be distributed to the audience at concerts where this symphony is included, as it is indispensable for a complete understanding of the dramatic plan of the work. [Berlioz’ note]

Part one: Réveries (Dreams and Passions)

The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer has called the vagueness of 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.

The first movement is a fairly standard opening movement with a slow introduction. Berlioz does not provide a standard, classical sonata form, though. Contemporary critics found it radical. The other movements are progressively more so.

Part two: Un bal (A Ball)

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.

 “A Ball” is equivalent of the minuet/trio in a classical symphony, which is usually the third movement.  Berlioz chooses a newer dance, a waltz. Its principal theme is based on the idée fixe, but more formal statements interrupt it.

The movement requires two harps, an unusual effect that dominates the accompaniment. This requirement, by the way, often made it hard to arrange performances, especially in Germany, because of the difficulty of finding two skilled harpists. The autograph score also includes a cornet solo, the cornet being a new instrument previously used only in military bands. Berlioz omitted it from the published score.

Part three: Scène aux champs (Scene in the Countryside)

One evening in the countryside he hears two shepherds in the distance dialoguing with their ‘ranz des vaches’; this pastoral duet, the setting, the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind, some causes for hope that he has recently conceived, all conspire to restore to his heart an unaccustomed feeling of calm and to give to his thoughts a happier coloring. He broods on his loneliness, and hopes that soon he will no longer be on his own… But what if she betrayed him!… This mingled hope and fear, these ideas of happiness, disturbed by dark premonitions, form the subject of the adagio. At the end one of the shepherds resumes his ‘ranz des vaches’; the other one no longer answers. Distant sound of thunder… solitude… silence…

“Scene in the Countryside” is a theme with five variations, but not exactly well behaved or standard in structure. Some early critics found it an incomprehensible mishmash. Most of the movement uses fresh musical material. The idée fixereturns in the second variation, where other material obliterates it. The fifth variation uses only fragments of the main theme until the fragments of the idée fixe take over at the end.

The movement features an offstage oboe solo in alternation with English horn. It ends with ominous rumbles of thunder on four timpani. The use of four timpani in an orchestra did not become standard until the end of the century. Instead of a single timpanist, Berlioz requires one performer for each drum, as the two or three of them play rolls simultaneously. Also, he required different sticks than had been customary.

Part four: Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold)

Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four bars of the idée fixe reappear like a final thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

The weird “March to the Scaffold” functions as a standard slow movement, which would ordinarily have been the second movement. Only the beginning of the idée fixe appears, and that only once near the end of the movement where, along with the artist’s head, it is chopped off by the guillotine.

As in the previous movement, Berlioz provided the percussion section with special instructions. The movement opens with a terrifying timpani roll and a traditional horn technique on unusual notes.

Before the invention of valves, hornists could only play notes not part of the overtone series by stopping or partly stopping the bell with their hand. By the 1845 publication of the symphony, valved horns had become common, but Berlioz requested traditional hand-stopping techniques on notes difficult to find and seldom used before, giving a weird, muffled effect.

In addition, Berlioz divided the cellos and basses into four low parts, another unprecedented effect.

Part five: Songe d’une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Night of Sabbath)

He sees himself at a witches’ sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath… Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy… The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae,** the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.

    **A hymn sung in funeral ceremonies in the Catholic Church. [Berlioz’ note]

“Dream of a Night of Sabbath” does not refer to a holy sabbath, but a witches’ sabbath where the idée fixe is transformed into a hideous caricature. The movement is in two parts, the second of which is called Ronde du sabbat (Witches’ Round Dance). It’s a fugue, by the way.

Berlioz has consigned his artist to hell, as the low brass intones the opening of “Dies irae” from the mass for the dead. The words, surely known to everyone in the audiences of the time, mean “Day of wrath. That day will dissolve the world in ashes.”

To open this movement, Berlioz divides the violins and violas into eight parts rather than the traditional three. They play very high tremolos very softly over an ominously rising bass figure, giving a nightmarish premonition of what is to come. Punctuating brass chords add to the effect.

When the idée fixe appears, Berlioz introduces it with another instrument previously used only in military bands, the shrill E-flat clarinet. The voice of judgment starts with church bells. Berlioz calls for bells an octave lower than standard orchestral chimes. The “Dies irae” is played by three trombones and two tubas. Like the cornet, the tuba was a new instrument. Berlioz is the first composer to use it at all. Only a few other works in the standard repertoire have two tuba parts.

Berlioz saves a final innovation for the end. He instructs the violins and violas to strike the strings with the wood of the bow (col legno) instead of playing notes with the hair.

Opium

Berlioz freely admitted that his symphony depicted the history of his infatuation with Harriet Smithson, but it is not autobiographical. By the time he composed it, he had only seen her while she was on stage and he was in the audience. He never saw her at a ball or in the countryside. He had written to her to ask to meet her, but she had ignored him.

He was, however, well acquainted with opium. At the time, it was a well-respected medical remedy for numerous conditions. Berlioz was among the habitual users. I haven’t found if he ever overdosed on it, but opium users in general were well acquainted with the dangers of taking it recklessly.

Berlioz was also very familiar with such literary descriptions of it as Goethe’s Faust and Thomas de Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

For the artist to try to commit suicide with opium, then, is certainly shocking, but not as farfetched in the 1830s as it might seem today.

Critical reception of Symphonie fantastique

After the premiere in December 1830, critics were divided between those who proclaimed a new work of genius and those who heard only ugly cacophony. Some delighted in the novelty. In fact, the audience demanded an encore of the “March to the Scaffold.” Berlioz did not comply. Others found the departure from the norm shocking and unacceptable. Many people, even those who liked the music, found the frank portrayal of Berlioz’ love life and personal emotions embarrassing.

Berlioz had little respect for any of the critics, writing, “the amount of fatuous theorizing and sheer foolishness poured forth by French critics in praise as well as execration of my music since that time beggars description.”

Here are a few comments by contemporary composers I have found:

“His orchestration is so dirty that I have to wash my hands after turning over the pages of his scores.” –– Mendelssohn.

 “There is much in his music that is insufferable, but also a great deal that is extremely intelligent, and even full of genius.” –– Schumann

Rossini reportedly exclaimed when first saw the score of the Symphonie fantastique,  “Mon Dieu, it’s lucky it’s not music!”

Regardless of critical skepticism of Berlioz’ merits as a composer, Symphonie fantastique made him internationally famous at a young age. Audiences loved it from the beginning, and it remains his best-known and most popular work.

Sources:

1830 Berlioz Symphonie fantastique / Tom Pankhurst, A-Level Music
Berlioz, Hector / Hugh MacDonald, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Grove Dictionaries of Music, 1980)
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique: mastery of the macabre / Jack Sullivan, Carnegie Hall. [2022]
Discovering Hector Berlioz / Classic FM
Hector Berlioz and Harriet Smithson: 50 Shades of Obsession / Georg Predota, Interlude. March 13, 2019
Opium and the Symphonie fantastique / Michael Jay, mikejay.net. 2023
Symphonie fantastique / The Hector Berlioz Website