Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

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Release Date: 5th Jul 2010
Catalogue No: 6285792
Label: Erato
Series: Virgo
Length: 64 minutes

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

Work length53:11

Album only

London Classical Players
Sir Roger Norrington
Recorded: 1988-03-10
Recording Venue: 8-10 March 1988 / No.1 Studio, Abbey Road

I. Rêveries - Passions

Track length14:23

Album only

II. Un bal

Track length6:02

$1.30

$1.70

III. Scène aux champs

Track length14:39

Album only

IV. Marche au supplice

Track length7:26

$1.30

$1.70

V. Songe d'une nuit du Sabbat

Track length10:41

Album only

Berlioz: Les Francs-juges Overture, Op. 3

Work length11:28

Album only

London Classical Players
Sir Roger Norrington
Recorded: 1988-11-28
Recording Venue: 25-28 November 1988 / No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

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For Théophile Gautier, the flamboyant figures of Berlioz, Hugo and Delacroix formed a “trinity of Romantic art”. The young Berlioz’s first masterpiece, the Symphonie fantastique, is one of the key works in the history of the Romantic movement and was much admired by Schumann. It was completed and first performed in 1830, and according to the composer it was written “with great difficulty in certain parts, with an incredible facility in others”. Berlioz was then in the throes of an “infernal” passion for a young Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, who he was to marry in 1833. He described the programme of this “instrumental drama” as an evocation of the “reveries” of a young artist who idolises a woman who does not return his love. In despair, he attempts suicide, and then dreams of being present at his own execution after having killed his beloved. The beloved is represented by an “idée fixe”, a kind of leitmotif that crops up in all five movements of the symphony, each of which is conceived as a poem in its own right – to the artist himself (“Rêveries-Passions”), to the dance (“Un bal”), to nature (“Scène aux champs”), to love and to death (“Marche au supplice” and “Songe d’une nuit de sabbat”). The last two movements are truly grotesque, dark and violent – qualities that are highlighted by the strikingly original orchestration. The young hero is led to the scaffold to the accompaniment of the theme of the Dies irae.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

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