- Symphonie fantastique: épisode de la vie d’un artiste, Op. 14 (Fantastic / Fantasy Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist) is a program symphony which Berlioz wrote in 1830.
- The Symphonie fantastique premiered in Paris on Dec. 5, 1830.
- In the extensive program he wrote to accompany the work, Berlioz outlines the symphony’s narrative: the obsession and psychological unraveling of an “Artist” who falls obsessively in love. You can read Berlioz’s full notes here.
- The symphony features a single theme which recurs in each movement. Berlioz, in his program notes, referred to this theme as an idée fixe (“fixed idea”) a 19th C. psychological term indicating an obsession. Contemporary physicians used the term in conjunction with the diagnosis of what was then called monomania. Berlioz’s program notes indicate that the idée fixe theme represents the woman with whom “The Artist” is obsessed.
- Berlioz wrote the idée fixe theme in 1828. It appeared in a cantata called Herminie which he wrote for the Prix de Rome competition. Herminie won Berlioz second prize. He entered the competition every year from 1827-1830, and finally won first prize on his fourth try in 1830.
- The program of the Symphonie fantastique is a fictionalized, romanticized account of Berlioz’s (one-sided) obsession with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. This was a more or less open secret to everyone in Paris.
- Berlioz first encountered Smithson when she appeared as Ophelia in Hamlet in Paris on Sept. 11, 1827. This experience launched Berlioz’s obsessions with Harriet and with Shakespeare.
- Berlioz was a fan with almost no personal acquaintance with Smithson. His fascination with her was as much about the Shakespearean heroines she played as with the woman herself. In fact, he often referred to her as Ophelia, or Desdemona, instead of by her own name.
- Berlioz and Smithson married in 1833. Unsurprisingly, it was a disaster. Read more about that here.1
Sources
- Hugh Macdonald, “Berlioz, (Louis-)Hector,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed February 17, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051424.
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