A Visit from Berlioz

It’s a quite evening. I made some pasta and am now sitting in the living room, enjoying a glass of Bella Sera Sangiovesse; a dry red Tuscan wine with the aroma of raspberries and the flavor of plums and cranberries. I’ve been looking forward to this for a week now, but haven’t had the time to really sit down and enjoy a home-cooked meal. Being so far away from home and the one you love, it’s the small things, the minor events, that have the most meaning. I enjoy wine and music, and tonight I’m listening to a true gem of the romantic period, the “Symphony Fantastique (Fantastic Symphony)” by Hector Berlioz.

This symphony is almost autobiographical as it tells the story of love at first sight and the desire of hopeless love that consumes the life of an artist. Autobiographical in that Berlioz fell for Harriet Smithson, a Shakespearean actress, who he first saw on stage in the roll of Ophelia. He wrote this symphony with her in mind. The symphony is a story told in five parts…

The first part is called, “Rêveries, passions (Dreams, Passions),” and as it plays, the artist, a musician, first gazes upon his true love. This occurs during the first part of movement and as the second part begins, we hear the idée fixe (the theme that represents the woman, his beloved, throughout the symphony). Listen…

The feelings expressed during the first movement are the musician’s joy, then rage and jealously, and expressed by the slow chords at the end, a religious consolation.

The second movement, “Un bal (A Ball),” takes place at a formal ball where the musician continues to see his beloved everywhere he looks. This movement is an elegant waltz.

In the third movement, “Scène aux champs (Scene at the Country),” the musician spends an evening in the country. Although a calm is restored, he is troubled because his beloved is not with him.

In the fourth movement, “Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold),” convinced that his beloved will not return, the musician takes opium and dreams that he is condemned to death for killing his beloved. At the end of the movement, he is led to the scaffold where he witnesses his own execution. Just before the blade falls, we hear the gentle idée fixe, which seems to represent the artist’s last thought before he dies.

The final movement, “Songe d’une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath),” is a dream of a witche’ sabbath. The musician is still under the influence of opium, and sees ghouls and monsters coming together to dance at his funeral. The beloved also appears in a grotesque dance version of her theme, funeral bells toll and the Dies irae (a chant) is parodied.

This piece has a special meaning for me because my beloved Cindy remains my fixed thought, my idée fixe, every waking moment of the day, and at night she consumes my dreams…