Bernard Haitink-Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

Conductor:

Bernard Haitink

Director:

Hans Hulscher

In this live recording made at the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique." Berlioz wrote his symphony, subtitled "Episodes from the Life of an Artist," in 1830. It is an autobiographical account of his love for the famous Irish actress Harriet Smithson. With this composition, Berlioz not only achieved a breakthrough in his career as a composer, but also defined early Romanticism with his so-called "program music." This innovative work consists of five parts, linked by a musical theme, the theme of love. A detailed written program describes a lover who searches for his beloved by smoking opium and through increasingly bizarre hallucinations, until on Walpurgis Night his beloved turns into an evil witch who dances on his grave. The work consists of a fantasy about the beloved, a description of a ball, a rural landscape, Napoleon's march to the scaffold, and a nightmare of a witches' orgy, known as a witches' sabbath. The theme of love recurs throughout the five parts and holds them tightly together. This work, long considered virtuosic nonsense, is now regarded as a brilliant psychological fantasy, its structure finely tuned to the accepted music of its time.