Download Symphonie Fantastique Big Issues

Symphonie Fantastique
Big Issues
Concepts
 Romanticism
 Absolute/program music
 Biographical composition
 Berlioz as a modern middle-class composer (profession not determined by
descent or family; rather he chose his profession)
 Image-painting vs. “State”-painting. Berlioz does both, e.g., “thunder”
(MVT 3), “beheading” (MVT 4), and “laughter” (MVT 5); but also not just
“thunder” but a fearful feeling of experiencing thunder, or emotional
states like loneliness.
Old guard vs. new guard:
 Fétis liked the ball and the march, but “this music arouses astonishment
rather than pleasure; it lacks charm.” (Fetis was even harsher later).
 Liszt and Schumann loved it.
 Was the music irreverent? Le Figaro: “We have religious music, and
plenty of it; but impious music: has anybody composed any before Berlioz?
We think not.”
 Do you agree/disagree with the reviewer for Le Temps that Berlioz is at his
best with the “fantastic, lurid, and ferocious” and weak in the tender and
lyrical movements?
 The movements in Berlioz correspond to which movements in
conventional Classical symphonies? How about Beethoven’s 9th?
Important Themes (listening):
 Idée Fixe in all movements
 Others from each respective movement:
o First:
 opening theme (A+B themes)
 replaced by the idée fixe (A) and a transitional (B) theme
o Second:
 ballroom theme
o Third:
 the shepherd calls at the beginning;
 the “theme” which is subjected to many variations
o Fourth:
 the march theme (A)
 trio theme (B)
o Fifth:
 the Dies irae
 the Witches “round dance”