- by Art Sulit, www.MuSeeks.com/ArthurSulit
Music Timeline Author
It can be said that Beethoven forshadowed the romantic movement, but Hector Berlioz liberated it. This French composer's first entrance into the Rome competitions did not win any awards. He was panned in the press. However, Berlioz returned two years later (1830) with a truly revolutionary composition, his 'Symphonie Fantastastique', which broke all the rules. It liberated the symphony from dry classicism, and paved the way to the dramatic large scale music of Wagner, then later 20th century film music. The work earned him the coveted the Prix de Rome in 1831.
In the piece, he greatly expands the physical size of the orchestra, employing a hundred players versus Beethoven's fifty, or Mozart/Haydn's twelve-to-thirty. He called for two harpists, FOUR Tympani players, a tower bell, and a host of other innovations.
Berlioz was a flutist and guitarist, not a string or piano player. Not being a piano or keyboard player (like most composers, including myself) allowed his mind to think in terms beyond the limits of the keyboard. For instance, his orchestration using multiple tympani players, playing "drum chords" was previously unheard of in western music (unless you went to Japan or Africa). He also introduced the "use of the wood", or col legno, toward the end of the last movement, where the violin sections turn their bows to the wooden side and "chuck" at the strings, creating a dessicated bones sound to emulate the "witches' dance" ending.
This symphony was dedicated to his infatuation love, a beautiful Irish actress who first spurned this wild, gawking man, then later married him. The fiery emotions in this piece reflect his first infatuation, then her spurning, and his imaginary killing of her. Then the witches take over as his opening love theme disintegrates and he descends into hell. The later Romantics, from Chopin, to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, all have paid tribute to the "liberation of fiery emotion" by Hector Berlioz.
That said, I must also point out its imperfections. As one of the very first truly "Romantic" masterpieces, I still detect many vestiges of boring Classicism where he roams without good direction, and employs overbeaten things which tire the audience. Many long sections are simply not exciting nor richly textured enough to our 20th century ears. The "best of the best" would come later, by others such as Tchaikovsky, who brought the refinement of Mozart into Romanticism. If I had my way, I would re-write the piece to today's standards. I think more people will actually sit through the entire thing then. This was certainly true with the Drum-and-Bugle corps treatment Phanthom Regiment gave it in 1985. They gave it a fiery rendition at the DCI world championships on TV, marching on the field while playing, spinning and whirling things into the air, with a most dramatic revamping of the percussion parts. However, we must remember his audience at the time--they never heard the largeness of what we've come to expect later, so Berlioz was truly revolutionary to them. Hence, Berlioz is our liberator, who's title is well-deserved. All of us are indebted to this great innovator.