Fugue #135

In his Symphonie Fantastique (1830), Hector Berlioz tells the story of an artist in love. The artist represents, in many ways, Berlioz himself, who was at the time struggling with his unreciprocated feelings for an actress famed throughout Europe for her portrayal of Shakespeare’s Ophelia in Hamlet. Is the artist, then, a trope for Hamlet? And, if the artist stands for Berlioz, is Berlioz somehow Hamlet? Or is he more like Shakespeare? To the extent that Hamlet tells the story of a creatively fertile, yet troubled mind, the Symphonie Fantastique (even moreso than Tchaikovsky’s overture or Shostakovich’s soundtrack), is its musical equivalent. But both the play and the symphony are much richer works.

The Symphonie Fantastique introduced the idée fixe. The introductory melody symbolizes the artist’s feelings for his beloved, and this melody recurs, in different forms, through the work. In the first movement, it is extended and idealized, representing a man who of thinks of nothing else besides his love. In the second movement, it is more subdued, representing a lonely soul adrift among gaiety. In the third movement, it represents love in a state of nature. In the fourth movement, it becomes a grotesque death march. And in the fifth movement, a tone poem - a plainchant Dies Irae, or requiem, for the artist.