00:00:15
This is "Symphonie Fantastique,"
an orchestral sonic spectacular.
00:00:24
Composed in Paris in 1830...
00:00:30
...it set the mark for what
a Romantic symphony should be.
00:00:35
With its overwhelming emotions
and unabashed melodrama...
00:00:38
...it pours straight from the heart and soul
of its composer, Hector Berlioz.
00:01:06
Welcome to Paris.
00:01:07
We're here in the Pantheon...
00:01:09
...a great monument
to France's fallen heroes.
00:01:13
We're looking over the great pendulum
placed here by the scientist Foucault...
00:01:18
...to demonstrate the cycles
of the Earth's rotation.
00:01:24
Foucault revolutionized science
in France...
00:01:29
...just as the great Romantic
Hector Berlioz revolutionized music.
00:01:35
And since the 1820s,
Berlioz had been interested...
00:01:39
...in public demonstrations
of quite another sort:
00:01:42
In demonstrations
of pendulum swings of feelings...
00:01:46
...and of the cycles of human emotions.
00:01:52
Like his friends and contemporaries...
00:01:54
...the painter Delacroix
and the novelist Victor Hugo...
00:01:57
...Berlioz set out to explore, proclaim
and glorify his own feelings.
00:02:06
That's what made him a true Romantic.
00:02:13
The Romantics were just
a pendulum swing away...
00:02:19
...from the group that preceded them,
the rationalists.
00:02:23
The rationalists had asserted...
00:02:25
...that nature and reality
were governed by concepts...
00:02:28
...and provable by scientific experiment
and thought.
00:02:33
Descartes had proclaimed,
"I think, therefore I am."
00:02:38
But Berlioz proclaimed,
"I feel, therefore I am."
00:02:56
The first big piece in which Berlioz
confessed his unique artistic vision...
00:02:59
...was "Symphonie Fantastique."
00:03:04
He wrote it when he was 26 years old,
and it was an epic for huge orchestra.
00:03:10
Long before its premiere...
00:03:11
...he began to circulate
a so-called program...
00:03:13
...which explained
what the symphony was about.
00:03:27
It was about the life of an artist,
his passions...
00:03:32
...particularly his self-destructive passion
for a beautiful woman...
00:03:35
...who has no idea he even exists.
00:03:39
So unhappy is this artist that
he eventually decides to kill himself...
00:03:43
...by taking a lethal dose of opium.
00:03:46
The symphony describes his last dreams,
hallucinations, ecstasies and despairs.
00:03:58
The story was, in fact...
00:03:59
...a psychological self-portrait
of its composer...
00:04:02
...blown up to a size suitable
for an inspired egomaniac.
00:04:05
He wrote the symphony
in a state of acute emotional distress...
00:04:10
...but its raw materials had been
a part of him for over 20 years...
00:04:14
...since the days of his childhood
in the village of La Côte Saint-André.
00:04:29
Hector Berlioz was born in 1803
in La Côte Saint-André...
00:04:39
...a small town near the French Alps.
00:04:42
Here, nothing much seems
to have changed in the last 200 years.
00:04:56
Hector was baptized
at the local church.
00:04:59
His mother was a devout Catholic,
his father was a noted doctor...
00:05:04
...and they lived in this charming house
right in the middle of town.
00:05:09
We're in Hector's room.
00:05:10
It's a fine-sized room for a little boy...
00:05:12
...and it has a great location,
because it's right next door...
00:05:17
...in fact, it connects with the study
of his father, Louis Berlioz.
00:05:22
Louis Berlioz was a remarkable man.
00:05:26
He wrote an important medical text...
00:05:29
...on chronic diseases,
cupping and even acupuncture.
00:05:34
When his son reached 10 years old,
Louis took over his education.
00:05:38
Right here,
they studied everything together:
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Mathematics, Latin, geography.
00:05:42
But at age 12...
00:05:44
...his life began to change rapidly,
through a series of revelations...
00:05:48
...which he describes in his amazing
and remarkable memoirs.
00:05:54
The first of these revelations
was his discovery of music.
00:06:00
It was the music he heard during
Communion at his village church...
00:06:07
...that changed his life.
00:06:15
I thought I saw heaven open,
a thousand times more beautiful...
00:06:20
...than the one
I had so often been told about.
00:06:23
Oh, the ecstasy
that possessed my young soul.
00:06:27
It was my first experience of music.
00:06:31
In the 19th century, it was customary
for a prosperous French family...
00:06:44
...to provide their children
with music lessons.
00:06:46
These mechanical dolls
celebrate that ritual.
00:06:51
The repetitive drills...
00:06:53
...the pupil attempting
to master the exercises.
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It was enough to drive
most beginning students away...
00:06:59
...but not Hector.
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He became an accomplished flutist,
and picked up the guitar.
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And then he taught himself drums.
00:07:11
Creating his own music
became a growing obsession...
00:07:14
...and music wasn't his only passion.
00:07:17
Now, Berlioz's room,
being right next to his dad's study...
00:07:24
...offered him great opportunities
for exploring the library...
00:07:28
...without supervision.
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That's just what he did.
00:07:31
One day, he found a copy of a book,
a pastoral romance.
00:07:35
It was called Estelle et Némorin...
00:07:39
...and Berlioz read it hundreds of times
in secret.
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The book is full of vows of eternal love
and cruel separations.
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Estelle in tears,
Estelle suffering in silence...
00:07:54
...Estelle fainting dead away.
00:07:56
And then one day, Hector's parents
took him to visit a lady in the next village.
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Her charming young niece
was named Estelle.
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The real Estelle
was an Alpine village temptress.
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She was 18, tall, elegant...
00:08:13
...and as Berlioz wrote in his memoirs,
primed for the attack.
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The moment I beheld her,
I was conscious of an electric shock.
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I loved her.
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Everyone laughed
at the spectacle of a child of 12...
00:08:39
...broken on the wheel of a love
beyond his years.
00:08:44
She herself was much amused.
00:08:46
She laughed, looking down on me...
00:08:48
...from the remoteness
of her unfeeling beauty.
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Hector was crushed.
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He poured out his hopeless love
into this fragile tune.
00:09:01
Now I have to leave forever
00:09:25
My dear country
00:09:30
My dear friend
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Far from them, I'll spend my weary life
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In sorrow and regret
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A river, whose crystal stream I have seen
00:09:56
A few years later, at the age of 16...
00:10:06
...he began to suffer from what he called
the disease of isolation...
00:10:22
...of the symphony's
imaginary suffering artist.
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Right from the start of
"Symphonie Fantastique"...
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...Berlioz introduces us
to his vulnerable side.
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There are the characteristic pauses.
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The sighs.
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The
00:11:46
menacing growling.
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The giddy laughter.
00:12:04
Music was the perfect expression
for Berlioz's romantic nature...
00:12:22
...but his family was absolutely against
his desire to be a musician.
00:12:29
His father insisted he go to Paris
and study medicine...
00:12:34
...and so he did.
00:12:40
But he was miserable doing it.
00:12:42
Besides, he spent more time
at the opera house...
00:12:45
...than he did in the operating theater.
00:12:46
So Berlioz's father grudgingly said:
00:12:49
"All right, you can study music for a time,
but you'd better be excellent."
00:12:53
His mother was far tougher.
00:12:59
She confronted him
on their family farm...
00:13:01
...and told him that she considered
all theater people as agents of the devil.
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She begged her son not to risk
the family's good name...
00:13:11
...by becoming a musician.
00:13:14
When Berlioz tried to calm her,
she disowned him.
00:13:21
Despite this encouraging sendoff
from his family...
00:13:23
...he returned to Paris,
now resolved to be a composer.
00:13:35
Paris in the 1820s was bursting
with new energy and ideas.
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Most of the city as we think of it
came into being at this time.
00:13:45
In the season of 1828, the city
was abuzz with two new sensations.
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The first was Beethoven.
00:13:57
It had taken 25 years...
00:14:03
...for Beethoven's third symphony,
the "Eroica," to begin to affect...
00:14:07
...the musical life of the nation
whose revolution had inspired it.
00:14:14
It wasn't just the music
that was at issue...
00:14:20
...it was the music's purpose:
to move and challenge the spirit...
00:14:24
...chart disturbing, even dangerous,
emotional territory.
00:14:31
The French old guard were shocked.
00:14:37
Youngsters like Berlioz
couldn't get enough of it.
00:14:41
He made Beethoven's musical language
the basis of his own.
00:14:45
The other sensation of 1828
was Shakespeare.
00:14:53
Shakespeare, that is, as presented
by the tempestuous Irish actress...
00:14:57
...Harriet Smithson.
00:15:01
Harriet was the star...
00:15:02
...of an English Shakespearean company
then touring Europe.
00:15:06
There's fennel for you.
00:15:11
When they opened
at the Odeon Theater in Paris...
00:15:14
...overnight, she became
the toast of the town.
00:15:18
She was Ophelia in Hamlet,
Desdemona in Othello.
00:15:23
Best of all, she was Juliet.
00:15:25
What's here?
00:15:26
A cup, closed in my true love's hand?
00:15:31
Poison, I see,
hath been his timeless end.
00:15:37
Seeing Harriet play Shakespeare
changed Berlioz's life forever.
00:15:41
He couldn't really understand English,
so he only reacted to her face, her figure...
00:15:46
...her gestures,
the rise and fall of her voice...
00:15:48
...the poignant pauses
of her style of acting.
00:15:51
Today, this style would be considered
melodramatic, even campy...
00:15:55
...but then it made the plays come alive.
00:15:59
Seated in the cheap seats...
00:16:00
...he might have experienced
something like this:
00:16:03
O Romeo, Romeo!
00:16:06
Wherefore art thou Romeo?
00:16:10
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
00:16:17
Or, if thou wilt not,
be but sworn my love...
00:16:26
...and I'll no longer be a Capulet.
00:16:33
What's in a name?
00:16:41
That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.
00:16:46
Whatever it was he got
from her performance...
00:16:48
...she herself
became his complete obsession.
00:16:52
From then on, his whole desire was to do
something to attract her attention...
00:16:55
...and "Symphonie Fantastique"
was the most extravagant of his attempts.
00:17:07
The object of the artist's hopeless love
was represented in the symphony...
00:17:11
...by a charming theme
Berlioz called the idée fixe...
00:17:15
...describing the phenomenon
of fixation.
00:17:31
The violins and flute...
00:17:47
...float elusively and flirtatiously
through the charming melody...
00:17:50
...stalked by the stealthy steps
of the lower strings.
00:18:25
Now Berlioz has set in play the themes
that will shape the first movement...
00:18:29
...the idée fixe standing
for the artist's beloved...
00:18:33
...and all the other music and noises
of the rest of the orchestra...
00:18:37
...representing the artist's frustration
and despair...
00:18:41
...as he tries to attract her attention
at theaters and parties...
00:18:44
...and mostly, inside of his own head.
00:18:51
He summoned enormous,
frightening noises from the orchestra.
00:19:02
A modern orchestra...
00:19:03
...an orchestra that this piece
had a very big part in establishing.
00:19:23
Outbursts like this alternate with
moments of the greatest tenderness.
00:19:28
The one big exception
comes in a moment of role reversal...
00:19:32
...where the cornets and winds blare out
the idée fixe in a blaze of sexual energy...
00:19:37
...and the violins scurry madly around.
00:19:40
A lot of the times, there's this great
answering back and forth.
00:19:44
And it's a
huge orchestra,
00:19:51
but your stand partner...
00:19:52
...you have to play off each other
and you have to be a little duet...
00:19:56
...in the midst
of this hundred-piece orchestra.
00:20:00
It's like a roller-coaster ride
for me sometimes.
00:20:09
...and then it's part panic
and part exhilaration.
00:20:34
It leads to a moment of
complete frenzy and collapse.
00:20:52
There's one last murmur
of the idée fixe...
00:20:59
...and then we're in a section sounding
like the quiet notes of an organ...
00:21:03
...suggesting the artist's hope
of finding consolation in religion.
00:22:02
The premiere of "Symphonie Fantastique"
took place in Paris in 1830.
00:22:08
In a three-month frenzy
of composition...
00:22:11
...the 26-year-old had poured out
all his feelings into his new symphony.
00:22:18
He was now a student
at the Conservatory of Music...
00:22:21
...and it was here that audiences
were first introduced...
00:22:25
...to this tryout of the piece.
00:22:28
We're in the original auditorium
of Paris' Conservatory of Music.
00:22:32
This is the hall where
Berlioz really became Berlioz.
00:22:36
It's much as it was in his time.
00:22:40
In this hall, so many shattering events
that shaped his life forever took place...
00:22:45
...like that amazing afternoon
when he first heard Beethoven.
00:23:00
This is the hall where
"Symphonie Fantastique" was premiered.
00:23:03
Berlioz knew its acoustic perfectly...
00:23:06
...and he closely considered
the numbers and positions...
00:23:09
...of each and every instrument
on the stage.
00:23:12
He himself played drums on this stage,
and later, he conducted.
00:23:16
He became a great conductor,
noted for the precise, colorful...
00:23:21
...and emotionally affecting performances
he drew from the musicians...
00:23:25
...all of whom he had personally hired
and paid for every concert.
00:23:32
The reaction to "Symphonie Fantastique"
was mixed.
00:23:39
Some were stirred,
many were outraged.
00:23:42
He had risked everything,
and it had almost worked.
00:23:47
Most disappointingly of all...
00:23:48
...absent from the audience
was Harriet Smithson.
00:24:17
The second movement
takes us to a ball...
00:24:20
...but it's an imaginary ball.
00:24:23
Out of a dreamy haze,
the sound of a new instrument emerges:
00:24:37
It's the sound of a harp.
00:24:38
In fact, two harps.
00:24:40
They appear only in this movement.
00:24:44
Here they are, leading in the waltz tune
as the dancers swirl around us.
00:25:09
It's just so tinkly and quiet,
and everyone's playing."
00:25:27
But it often cuts through
due to the percussiveness...
00:25:30
...especially the higher pitches.
00:25:38
In this movement,
our point of view swings...
00:25:40
...between viewing
the elegant ball itself...
00:25:42
...and spying on the artist
as he tries to position himself...
00:25:46
...hoping to catch forbidden glimpses
of his beloved...
00:25:48
...as she waltzes by,
her idée fixe trailing behind her.
00:25:55
He doesn't dare to approach her.
00:25:56
He never gains her attention...
00:25:58
...exactly as Berlioz was unable
to gain Harriet's attention.
00:26:16
The movement accelerates
to a dizzying close...
00:26:19
...the harps add their special glitter.
00:26:53
But the ball was only a dream.
00:26:56
Berlioz still had to face
the cold realities of real life.
00:27:00
"Symphonie Fantastique"
had not been the crazy success...
00:27:05
...he'd hoped for.
00:27:07
And Paris was expensive...
00:27:09
...especially for a struggling artist.
00:27:12
What's more, he still felt he needed
national recognition as a composer.
00:27:19
So he decided to enter...
00:27:21
...the Institute of France's
composition contest...
00:27:24
...competing for the highly coveted,
richly rewarded Prix de Rome.
00:27:32
The Prix de Rome
was an annual composition contest.
00:27:35
It took place in the headquarters
of the French Academy...
00:27:38
...right here in this fabulous library.
00:27:42
The competition was in two parts.
00:27:44
The first part was rather like the
first round of an ice-skating match:
00:27:49
Compulsory figures.
00:27:52
The candidates were given a theme
upon which to write a fugue.
00:27:57
A fugue is a kind of musical acrostic,
or puzzle...
00:28:06
...for several independent voices.
00:28:08
It all has very strict rules...
00:28:10
...and the judges seemed to delight
in faulting the candidates...
00:28:14
...for the slightest infractions
of those rules.
00:28:17
To write a fugue under these conditions
was absolute torture.
00:28:26
The second round
was more of a freestyle--
00:28:29
Well, not too freestyle.
00:28:31
--event.
00:28:32
The candidates were read a text,
usually from mythology or from the Bible...
00:28:36
...and on that text, they were expected
to compose a cantata...
00:28:40
...a kind of mini-opera for soloists,
chorus and orchestra.
00:28:46
During their composing...
00:28:47
...they were confined
right here behind this bookcase.
00:28:50
Up these stairs,
they were kept in tiny cubicles...
00:28:57
...locked in until they had finished
their compositions.
00:29:05
It took Berlioz four years to master
the rules of the competition...
00:29:12
...and learn to disguise his own true
musical nature enough to win it...
00:29:17
...but at last, in 1830, he did,
and this book records his triumph.
00:29:30
Winning the Prix de Rome meant Berlioz
got the recognition he coveted...
00:29:33
...as well as a subsidy
for two years' study in Rome.
00:29:56
The third movement opens
with an echo from Berlioz's childhood...
00:30:18
...growing up near the Alps.
00:30:24
It's the sound of a cowherd's melody
played here on alpenhorns...
00:30:28
...by two San Francisco Symphony
musicians.
00:30:33
It's part of the pastoral folk tradition
of a lot of composers.
00:30:41
Berlioz was more than happy
to incorporate some of the tunes...
00:30:45
...and the feeling of the alpenhorn
into the "Symphonie Fantastique."
00:30:56
The beginning of the third movement
is a feeling of great connection...
00:31:01
...with the countryside, pastoral nature.
00:31:07
Berlioz orchestrated this musical memory
not for some kind of a horn...
00:31:10
...but for a double-reed instrument
confusingly called the English horn.
00:31:15
It's echoed by an oboe
playing from off-stage.
00:31:33
Berlioz said this movement
was the most difficult to compose.
00:31:36
It took him months.
00:31:37
Why?
00:31:38
Because it concerns intimacy...
...the most difficult emotion to be attained
00:31:42
and the most difficult to be sustained.
00:31:48
In this movement...
00:31:54
...Berlioz uses his huge orchestra
delicately, tenderly, confessionally...
00:31:58
...to create a sense of suspension of time
that great love can bring.
00:32:04
The music is always
only a heartbeat away...
00:32:11
...from storms of rage
that arise when the artist imagines...
00:32:15
...he catches sight of his beloved
with somebody else.
00:33:03
Tremolo is-- It's where we have to move
our bows incredibly fast and furiously.
00:33:09
Tremolo can be one of
the most electrifying things...
00:33:12
...that a violin section can do.
00:33:14
And it can also be one of
the most exhausting things to do.
00:33:20
If it's long enough, it can be the bane
of a violinist's existence.
00:33:31
This passage illustrates,
perhaps better than any other...
00:33:34
...the pendulum swings
of Berlioz's emotions...
00:33:37
...and the emotional range of his music.
00:34:32
Perhaps the most important part
of Berlioz's Italian journey...
00:34:36
...was his opportunity
to explore the countryside...
00:34:39
...and in it, to find
a new musical landscape.
00:35:01
Berlioz became especially fond
of a little hill town called Subiaco.
00:35:04
He would escape here
at every opportunity.
00:35:09
It was the perfect Romantic's refuge.
00:35:20
The atmosphere of Subiaco
inspired Berlioz...
00:35:23
...as he polished
"Symphonie Fantastique."
00:35:31
Although we tend to remember
the noisy explosions...
00:35:33
...of "Symphonie Fantastique,"
most of the music is quiet.
00:35:38
Berlioz delights in creating
a floating world of sound.
00:35:50
As the scene in the country
comes to an end...
00:36:16
...the English horn returns
and a quartet of timpani...
00:36:20
...give their impression
of a passing thunderstorm.
00:36:25
And a storm seemed to be passing
in Berlioz's spirit.
00:36:38
The trip to Italy had refreshed him.
00:36:40
Now he summoned his courage
to return to Paris...
00:36:43
...take up his quest
for musical mastery and recognition.
00:36:49
Essential to this was revising
"Symphonie Fantastique"...
00:36:52
...to be the unquestioned masterpiece
he knew it was.
00:36:56
He'd pretty much given up on Harriet,
but he hadn't given up on the piece.
00:37:11
By 1832, Berlioz was back in Paris...
00:37:14
...determined to swing
public opinion his way...
00:37:16
...with a new version of
"Symphonie Fantastique."
00:37:18
He relaunched the piece
with a second premiere...
00:37:26
...booking the same hall,
hiring many of the same musicians...
00:37:30
...and then discovering
Harriet Smithson was living nearby.
00:37:40
The intervening years
had not been all that kind to Harriet.
00:37:44
Shakespeare was now
last year's news...
00:37:46
...and she was no longer the obsession
of the Parisian audience.
00:37:49
In fact, she was deeply in debt...
00:37:52
...and struggling
to hold her company together.
00:37:56
But Berlioz, ever the romantic,
desperately wanted Harriet there...
00:37:59
...on the opening night
to witness his triumph.
00:38:04
He gave her tickets
to the best seats in the house...
00:38:10
...the first loge, right by the stage.
00:38:13
Every eye turned toward her
as she entered.
00:38:30
In the fourth movement...
00:38:46
...Berlioz begins to reveal
the truly sinister side of his imagination.
00:38:51
As he explained in the program notes:
00:38:55
The artist, knowing beyond all doubt
that his love is not returned...
00:38:59
...poisons himself with opium.
00:39:01
The narcotic plunges him into sleep,
accompanied by the most horrible visions.
00:39:13
The first of those horrible visions...
00:39:22
...was the already famous
"March to the Scaffold."
00:39:24
It was the first movement
Berlioz had written.
00:39:27
He came up with it, he said,
in a single night.
00:39:30
He'd already used it
as part of two other pieces...
00:39:32
...and now he revised it in order to
continue the artist's dream.
00:39:37
The artist now imagines himself
brought to the scaffold...
00:39:41
...and executed for the murder
of his beloved.
00:39:57
The march echoes the sound
of the enormous bands...
00:39:59
...that swarmed through Paris
during the revolution...
00:40:02
...accompanying victims
to the guillotine.
00:40:03
The cellos and basses
play a gruff, menacing theme...
00:40:15
...accompanied by one of
Berlioz's favorite noises...
00:40:18
...four baying bassoons.
00:40:29
Then comes the main theme
of the movement:
00:40:31
The gleeful sound of a military band
escorting the prisoner...
00:40:34
...to the enthusiastic cheers and squeals
of the strings.
00:40:59
The low brass make
a mighty proclamation.
00:41:10
The
00:41:22
music lurches forward...
00:41:23
...representing a prisoner's cart
rushing toward the place of execution.
00:41:36
And then in the last instant of his life,
the artist remembers his beloved.
00:41:59
There's not even enough time to make it
all the way through her theme.
00:42:03
The blade falls,
his head bounces down the steps...
00:42:06
...the drums roll and the crowds roar.
00:42:27
The fifth movement,
a Sabbath eve's dream.
00:42:49
Of course,
Berlioz means black Sabbath.
00:42:52
It takes up where
the fourth movement left off.
00:42:57
The artist sees himself in the midst
of a ghastly crowd of spirits...
00:43:02
...sorcerers and monsters
assembled for his funeral.
00:43:17
The air is filled with strange groans...
00:43:20
...whispers...
00:43:26
...bursts of laughter...
00:43:36
...shouts and echoes.
00:43:48
Suddenly, there's a commotion
as some great personage comes in.
00:43:55
Who is it?
00:43:56
It's the artist's beloved.
00:43:58
Now she's a witch, and her theme
has been transformed and distorted...
00:44:03
...into a spiteful parody of itself.
00:44:15
Shrill clarinets and piccolos
squeak the tune...
00:44:18
...in the form of a merry,
mocking dance.
00:44:25
A vast church bell begins
to chime the traditional peal of death.
00:44:41
Three rings, pause.
00:44:49
Three rings, pause.
00:44:56
Three rings, pause.
00:45:03
Then unison bassoons and tubas
bark out the Dies Irae...
00:45:07
...the traditional chant sung at funerals,
"day of wrath."
00:45:21
It's great to play the role
of the bad guy or the villain...
00:45:25
...to scare or show your teeth...
00:45:29
...or just provide
that certain amount of grit.
00:45:41
Originally, "Symphonie Fantastique"
was written for an instrument...
00:45:45
...that's a predecessor of the tuba
called the ophicleide...
00:45:49
...and it's a cross between a bassoon
and a saxophone with a mouthpiece.
00:45:57
And it didn't make it as an instrument.
00:45:59
Soon after "Symphonie Fantastique"...
00:46:02
...the valve was invented, in 1835...
00:46:05
...and it really changed everything
about brass instruments...
00:46:09
...and that was the end of the ophicleide.
00:46:20
The orchestra divides into teams...
00:46:24
...that seem to enact
some kind of sinister ritual.
00:46:26
The brass intone the Dies Irae...
00:46:29
...the squeaky winds and pizzicato strings
a kind of up-tempo parody of it.
00:46:41
All the while, the deep bell keeps tolling.
00:46:52
And then, big surprise...
00:47:10
...the groaning theme from
the beginning of the movement...
00:47:15
...which had been transformed into
that shriek at the end of the Dies Irae...
00:47:22
...now is transformed
into a merry black Sabbath dance...
00:47:27
...which suddenly becomes the object of,
of all things, a fugue.
00:47:40
One can imagine that after
Berlioz's torturous experience...
00:47:44
...writing fugues
at the Prix de Rome competition...
00:47:46
...this form may have come to represent
for him the ultimate vision of hell.
00:47:59
The music whips itself into a frenzy,
combining all the themes at once...
00:48:03
...as it bears the soul of the helpless artist
on to his damnation.
00:48:24
His beloved looks over
the scene, gloating.
00:49:06
"Hector is going to hell!
00:49:12
Hector is going to hell!"
00:49:19
Now, imagine all this
from Harriet's perspective.
00:49:29
The audience erupted in applause,
and she, at last she had realized...
00:49:34
...what everyone else in Paris
had known for years:
00:49:37
That "Symphonie Fantastique"
was about her.
00:49:41
She was the artist's idée fixe.
00:49:44
She was Berlioz's adored one.
00:49:47
She agreed to receive him.
00:49:52
And then the real drama began.
00:49:57
Hector and Harriet
started to act out in real life...
00:50:00
...what "Symphonie Fantastique"
had only imagined.
00:50:12
He began to call on her.
00:50:13
They spoke to one another haltingly
in their different languages...
00:50:17
...but gradually, Harriet came
to understand that Berlioz really loved her.
00:50:22
She was overwhelmed, but indecisive.
00:50:24
One day, not paying any attention,
she got out of a carriage...
00:50:28
...fell, badly breaking her ankle.
00:50:31
Now she was even more vulnerable,
and still indecisive.
00:50:37
And then Berlioz
did something desperate...
00:50:39
...to force her to make a decision.
00:50:42
He produced from his pocket a vial.
00:50:44
It contained a lethal dose of opium...
00:50:46
...and right there before her,
he swallowed the whole thing.
00:50:49
She became hysterical
and avowed again and again...
00:50:52
...that she would marry him.
00:50:54
Then he produced, conveniently,
from another pocket...
00:50:57
...the antidote to the opium
and swallowed that.
00:51:02
He was sick for days, but he survived.
00:51:11
Finally, she consented.
00:51:14
They were married at the British Embassy
in Paris on October 3rd, 1833.
00:51:19
Franz Liszt was their best man.
00:51:21
It had been six years
since Hector had first laid eyes on her.
00:51:29
For several years,
they lived happily together.
00:51:33
They had a son, Louis...
00:51:35
...and Berlioz worked very hard
to relaunch his wife's career...
00:51:39
...pay off her debts and use their love
to go on inspiring his own work...
00:51:43
...but it was hard.
00:51:45
The fickle fashions of Paris
had moved on.
00:51:49
Nobody cared very much anymore
about their grand passion...
00:51:53
...or about Miss Smithson's
style of acting.
00:51:57
She became jealous, a recluse.
00:51:59
Ultimately, she and Berlioz separated,
but he never abandoned her.
00:52:04
He always took care of her...
00:52:06
...and even after her death, he recognized
that she was the inspiration...
00:52:13
...of his artistic breakthrough.
00:52:14
They were buried together
at the cemetery in Montmartre.
00:52:21
With "Symphonie Fantastique,"
Berlioz stepped into his artistic maturity.
00:52:35
The daring of his musical imagination
was soaring.
00:52:39
He'd become who he wanted to be:
00:52:44
Hector Berlioz,
composer, artist, impresario, master.
00:52:54
Best of all,
his dreams were still largely intact...
00:52:57
...and every time he raised his baton...
00:52:59
...and heard the opening notes
of the symphony...
00:53:01
...somewhere inside himself,
he was still in touch...
00:53:04
...with the feelings of the little boy who,
all those years ago...
00:53:07
...had sung his melancholy romance.
00:54:27
It's the story of an artist's life.
00:54:29
A life of dreams, ecstasies...
00:54:31
...and finally, of complete despair.
00:54:35
"Symphonie Fantastique"...
00:54:36
...performed by Michael Tilson Thomas
and the San Francisco Symphony.
00:55:00
Poor Hector Berlioz...
00:55:02
...obsessed with a beautiful woman
who had no idea he existed.
00:55:05
But he translated his pent-up passions
into "Symphonie Fantastique"...
00:55:10
...one of the great romantic symphonies.
00:55:13
He called his symphony
the story of an artist's life.
00:55:17
In fact, it's a psychological self-portrait.
00:55:20
His mood swings
are blown up to a size...
00:55:23
...suitable for the truly inspired
egomaniac that he was.
00:55:26
It's grand, it's extravagant
and scored for a huge orchestra...
00:55:31
...as you'll see in this
San Francisco Symphony performance...
00:55:33
...from our home right here
at Davies Symphony Hall.
