Sunday Classics Preview: En route to Berlioz' "Harold in Italy," we have to pass through his "Symphonie fantastique"

UPDATED to include some consideration of Berlioz' post-composition decision to make the whole Fantastique a dream rather than just the "psychedelic" 4th and 5th movements

Witches' sabbath -- as imagined by Arthur Rackham
in pen and ink and watercolor

by Ken

Our subject this week is Berlioz' symphony with viola solo Harold in Italy. Last night we heard three very different performances, all with William Primrose as soloist, of the second movement, "March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer." Our big Harold push comes tomorrow, but just to touch base -- and since I happen to have an extra file left over from tomorrow's music, let's listen to the opening movement:

BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16:
i. Harold in the mountains: Scenes of melancholy, of happiness, and of joy


Gérard Caussé, viola; Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded March 3-7, 1991


IN WHICH WE DISPOSE OF BERLIOZ' SYMPHONIE
FANTASTIQUE IN A MERE PREVIEW!

As we noted last week in connection with the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette, Arturo Toscanini took his Berlioz seriously, and was a great champion of both Roméo and Harold in Italy, which I think we can fairly describe as neglected masterpieces in those years, and for some years to come. After the great triumph of his NBC Symphony broadcast of the complete Roméo in 1949, he turned his attention to The Damnation of Faust, but sadly was never able to solve logistical problems starting with the availability of a suitable tenor.

Curiously, Toscanini seems not to have thought much of most of the Symphonie fantastique, an opinion I don't think many of us would share. The Fantastique remains one of the best-loved pieces of music ever written, and I'm kind of astonished that we're "dispatching" it in a "preview." Nevertheless, the piece's close connection to Harold in Italy, which we'll talk about more tomorrow, makes it suitable fare for this preview.

The history of the Fantastique, both its creation and the composer's subsequent thinking about it, is much too elaborate for us to go into here. But it's well to remember that symphonie fantastique was originally just part of the piece's subtitle. The working title was Episode from the life of an artist, which became the subtitle -- we assume with Berlioz' approval if not at his instigation.

I go into this because Berlioz' thinking about the "program" of the Symphonie fantastique evolved in a number of ways, and there are two significantly different versions, at least for the first four movements. Some of the changes reflect the inclusion of the strange sequel he had by then written, the "lyrical monodrama" Lélio, or The Return to Life. But clearly, by the time of the revised program, he had done some rethinking about the role of the program itself. In the new introductory note, in fact, he says that if the symphony is performed by itself, without Lélio, it's possible if necessary to refrain from distributing the program to the audience -- "retaining only the titles of the five pieces; the symphony (or so the author hopes) being able to offer on its own a musical interest independent of all dramatic intention."

AN ALL-IN-ONE RESOURCE FOR THE FANTASTIQUE

I should express my debt here to Edward T. Cone's outstanding essay on "The Symphony and the Program" in his invaluable Norton Critical Scoreedition, which presents not just "an authoritative score," but "historical background," "analysis," and "views and comments" (principally by composers). I'm delighted to see that it's still in print, though the list price is now closer to seven than six times the $3.25 printed on my copy -- but Amazon.com lists copies almost that cheap (not counting shipping)!

So by all means feel free to pay little or even no attention to the program. However, if you need to see the program in order to decide how much heed to pay it, here it is, in the revised version, which you'll note now makes the entire piece a product of the young musician's drug trip.

Originally only the "psychedelic" fourth and fifth movements, the "March to the scaffold" and "Dream of a night of witches' sabbath," were drug-induced dreams of the young musician. Edward Cone makes the interesting suggestion:

Berlioz certainly realized that whatever music can or cannot portray, there is no way that music alone can distinguish between the depiction (a) of an experience, (b) of a memory of the experience, and (c) of a dream about the experience. The distinction between waking and dream in the earlier program had thus been artificial and nonmusical, and the obliteration of the division might have been a confession that the descriptive powers of music were even more limited than the composer had hitherto admitted. It is possible, then, that the new program was his way of telling the audience: "Look, don't take all this too seriously; it's only a dream. The main thing is the music."

Speaking of the young musician's drug trip, for $2.97 you can download Leonard Bernstein's 15-minute illustrated talk on the Fantastique, "Berlioz Takes a Trip." I'm not sure if I've ever actually listened to it, but I'm sure you can expect, as usual with the "teaching" Lenny, much useful audible analysis of the piece -- provided you can get past the unfortunate '70s-style marketing hype that seems to suggest, "If you like drugs, you'll love this music."

Just to keep the performance selection within manageable bounds, I've confined the selection to Francophone conductors -- not strictly speaking French, or we would lose our Belgian maestro, André Cluytens. The orchestras aren't necessarily French (or even Francophone), though, but we have managed to work in a couple.

First Berlioz sets the scene:

A young musician with a morbid sensibility and an ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The dose of narcotic, too weak to bring him death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions, during which his sensations, his feelings, his memories are translated in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images. The beloved woman herself has become for him a melody, like an Idée fixe that he reencounters and hears everywhere.

BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14:
i. Rêveries. Passions

1st PART
Reveries. Passions

He remembers first that malaise of the soul, that vague des passions [wave of passions], those melancholies, those joys without origin which he experienced before having seen her whom he loves; then the volcanic love that she instantaneously inspired in him, his delirious agonies, his jealous furies, his returns of tenderness, his religious consolations.

Orchestre national de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded January 1973

* * *

Symphonie fantastique:
ii. Un bal

2nd PART
A ball

He reencounters his beloved at a ball in the setting of the tumult of a great festivity.

Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, Alain Lombard, cond. Erato, recorded c1972

* * *

Symphonie fantastique:
iii. Scène aux champs

3rd PART
Scene in the fields

A summer evening in the country; he hears two shepherds who dialogue a "ranz des vaches"; this pastoral duo, the setting of the scene, the light rustling of the trees gently stirred by the wind, some trains of hope that he has recently developed, everything comes together to bring to his heart an unaccustomed calm, to give his ideas a more jocular color; but she appears again -- his heart is torn, dolorous presentiments disturb him: if she were deceiving him. . . . One of the shepherds repeats his naive melody; the other no longer answers. The sun retires . . . distant noise of thunder . . . solitude . . . silence . . .

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded Nov. 28, 1959

* * *

Symphonie fantastique:
iv. Marche au supplice

4th PART
March to the scaffold

He dreams that he killed the one he loved, that he is condemned to death, led to the scaffold. The procession advances, to the sounds of a march at once somber and fierce, at once brilliant and solemn, in which a noise of heavy steps gives way without transition to the most clamorous outbursts. At the end the idée fixe reappears for an instant, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Nov. 14-15, 1954

* * *

Symphonie fantastique:
v. Songe d'une nuit du sabbat

5th PART
Dream of a night of witches' sabbath

He sees himself at the witches' sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troupe of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every sort gathered for his funeral. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries to which other cries seem to respond. The beloved melody reappears again; but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it's no longer anything but a base, trivial, and grotesque dance; it's she who's come to the witches' sabbath. . . . Blast of joy at her arrival. . . . She mingles with the diabolical orgy. . . Funeral-bell tolling, burlesque parody of the Dies irae. Witches' sabbath round-dance. The witches' sabbath round-dance and the Dies irae together.

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 3, 1969


PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE

Here's a recording I like a lot, which I don't think has gotten as much attention as it deserves.

BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique; Episode from the life of an artist, Op. 14

i. Reveries. Passions
ii. A ball
iii. Scene in the fields
iv. March to the scaffold
v. Dream of a night of witches' sabbath


ii at 14:00, iii at 20:26. iv at 36:50, v at 41:39
Philharmonia Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded November 1958


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --

As noted, we take in the whole of Harold in Italy, noting its connections to the Symphonie fantastique. We'll also have a Berlioz bonus.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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