The Symphonie Fantastique was initially composed in 1830 and first performed in December of the same year under the direction of Habeneck. Berlioz however revised the work extensively during his trip to Italy in 1831-2 and in subsequent years and did not publish it until 1845. The work as we now know it is thus substantially different from the original of 1830, which can no longer be reconstructed in full detail.

The Symphonie Fantastique has always been the work with which Berlioz’s name is most closely associated. The composition of this revolutionary masterpiece marked a breakthrough in the composer’s career, at once the culmination of his years of apprenticeship, and the starting point of his mature work as a symphonic composer. The impact that Beethoven had on Berlioz is evident in the work, but no less evident is Berlioz’s originality in opening up new paths that Beethoven had not explored, and the sound world of Berlioz is entirely his own.

The programme on which the symphony was initially based went through a number of changes between 1830 and 1855. It does not need to be repeated at length here. Under the influence of opium (in the 1855 version), a young and sensitive artist (Berlioz himself), experiences a series of visions – the different movements of the symphony – in which his beloved figures as a theme, the idée fixe, which recurs in every movement, though each time in a different form (cf. the Memoirs chapter 45 in relation to Harold in Italy). The theme had already been used by Berlioz in his cantata Herminie written for the Prix de Rome of 1828 (H 29), though it is much more fully developed in the symphony than in the cantata. ...

From Hector Berlioz Website

Berlioz


Symphonie Fantastique


The London Classical Players
Roger Norrington, conductor

Recorded: III.1998,
nr.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London



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