Outline
The symphony is a piece of program music that tells the story of "an artist gifted with a lively imagination" who has "poisoned himself with opium" in the "depths of despair" because of "hopeless love." Berlioz provided his own program notes for each movement of the work (see below). He prefaces his notes with the following instructions:
The composer’s intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following programme must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression.
There are five movements, instead of the four movements that were conventional for symphonies at the time:
- Rêveries – Passions (Daydreams – Passions)
- Un bal (A ball)
- Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country)
- Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold)
- Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)
Read more about this topic: Symphonie Fantastique
Famous quotes containing the word outline:
“One by one objects are defined—
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—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“The outline of the city became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky.”
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“A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)