Ravinia 2024 Issue 4

The story involves a young musician who falls in love with the idealized woman of his dreams. Passion awakens a frenzy of emotions ranging from melancholy to ecstasy. Images of the Be- loved haunt him constantly, even amidst the tumult of a ball or in the countryside as two shepherds play a gentle duet, a ranz des vach- es . Feeling his love is unrequited, the musician attempts suicide by opium. His weak dosage brings hallucinations instead of death. The artist dreams that he has murdered the Beloved and is condemned to death. He witnesses his own pro- cessional march to the scaffold and welcomes a final tender vision of his Beloved before the fa- tal blow. Next, the artist imagines himself at his own funeral at a witches’ sabbath. His Beloved’s “nobility and shyness” have transformed into something “mean, trivial, and grotesque.” She joins the demonic scene in a wild round dance mingled with strains of the Dies irae , a chant from the Catholic Mass for the Dead. Berlioz devised an innovative means of re- calling the Beloved throughout the Sympho- nie fantastique —a distinctive melody called the idée fixe that appears in each movement. The thematic character alters with the artist’s changing vision of his Beloved. Furthermore, the idée fixe contributed a cyclic unity to the symphony. This melody originally belonged to Berlioz’s cantata Herminie (1828), an unsuc- cessful submission for the Prix de Rome. The composer transferred music from other early compositions into the Symphonie fantastique . For instance, the opening violin melody orig- inated as an “intensely sad song” in his Estelle et Némorin songs (now lost) based on texts from La Fontaine’s Les deux pigeons . Scholars are reasonably certain that Berlioz transplanted the “March of the Guards” from his opera Les francs-juges (1826) directly into the symphony as the “March to the Scaffolds.” Symphonie fantastique received its premiere on December 5, 1830, more than three years after the lovelorn composer first set eyes on the Irish actress. Close friends understood the identity of the two protagonists: Berlioz as the artist, and Smithson as his Beloved. The subject of this passion and derision, however, remained utterly unaware of her part in the orchestral drama. That situation changed at a later performance on December 9, 1832. Berlioz, recently returned from two years in Italy as winner of the Prix de Rome (awarded for his 1830 cantata La mort de Sardanapale ), had rented an apartment formerly occupied by Smithson. The housekeeper shared startling news with the composer: “She’s in Par- is, she was staying here only a few days ago.” Smithson had returned as director of an English theatrical company presenting dramas of the great Bard of Avon for French audiences. The troupe experienced little success on this return tour because, as Berlioz explained, “Shakespeare was no longer a novelty to the feckless and frivo- lous public.” His publisher, Maurice Schlesinger, age 11. After several tours in his teens, Paganini temporarily suspended his concert career to de- vote full time to the perfection of his virtuoso technique. In 1805, he set out on another tour, displaying his phenomenal abilities throughout Europe. Paganini’s playing affected both ama- teur and professional musicians. Hector Berlioz composed his Harold in Italy for Paganini after meeting him in Paris. Franz Liszt modeled his career as a piano virtuoso on that of Paganini. Like most 19th-century virtuosos, Paganini composed several display pieces for his own re- cital and orchestral performances. The majority of his orchestral output—variations on popular tunes and five violin concertos—served this practical necessity. Three concertos date from his Italian period (No. 1 from 1817, and Nos. 2 and 3 from 1826), while the final two probably were intended for performances in Germany (1830). The Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, op. 7, garnered acclaim for its delightful rondo à la clochette finale, which earned the movement the epithet “La campanella” (The Bell). HECTOR BERLIOZ (1803–1869) Symphonie fantastique, Première partie de l’Épisode de la vie d’un artiste, oeuvre lyrique , op. 14 Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, four bassoons, four horns, pairs of cornets and trumpets, three trombones, two ophicleides (tubas substitute), timpani, bass and snare drums, cymbals, bells, two harps, and strings The theatrical works of Shakespeare seared Berlioz’s soul like a bolt of lightning. On Sep- tember 11, 1827, he attended a performance of Hamlet given by a traveling English troupe at the Odéon Theater in Paris. Despite an utter ignorance of the English language, Berlioz was instinctively drawn to Shakespeare’s tragic char- acters. This fascination left its mark on several Niccolò Paganini by John Whittle (1836) compositions, including the dramatic sympho- ny Roméo et Juliette and the grand overture Le roi Lear (King Lear). Lightning struck Berlioz a second time in the person of Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress whose performance as Ophelia in Hamlet ignit- ed the young composer’s passion. “The impres- sion made on my heart and mind by her extraor- dinary talent, nay her dramatic genius, was equaled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted,” wrote the com- poser of the September 11 performance. Berlioz did not meet Smithson before her return to En- gland. Nonetheless, his idealized memory of the actress developed into obsessive infatuation. The “tortures of an endless and unquenchable passion” that Berlioz endured sparked vague ideas for a grand symphony, which he outlined in a letter to Humbert Ferrand on February 6, 1830. When rumors of a tryst between Smith- son and her manager circulated in Paris, Berlioz flew into a jealous rage. Her imagined betrayal provided the missing dramatic element to the orchestral work formulating in his mind— Ep- isode from the Life of an Artist: Fantastic Sym- phony in Five Movements . Berlioz reversed the title and subtitle sometime after 1858 to account for the sequel “episode”: Lelio, or the Return to Life, Lyrical Monodrama , a large-scale piece in six movements intermingled with long mono- logues. The symphonic title assumed a defini- tive form as Fantastic Symphony, First Part of the Episode from the Life of an Artist, Lyrical Opus . Berlioz brought a revolutionary approach to this symphony, combining the limitless expressive strength of Romantic orchestral writing with the narrative capacity of prose and drama. He expanded the standard symphonic structure to five movements, corresponding to the number of acts in classic tragedies. Each movement bears a descriptive title drawn from his published pro- gram notes, which Berlioz wanted distributed to audiences and read before the performance. Harriet Smithson RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 5 – AUGUST 18, 2024 90