Symphonie Fantastique is the most famous work of French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), released in 1830. The piece was a major game changer for Romanticism, as it developed the approach of Ludwig van Beethoven's sixth symphony, the Pastorale, to a programmatic symphony that even contained a plot told in musical pictures, anticipating the Tone Poem of Franz Liszt as well the Leitmotif of Richard Wagner.
The plot consists of five acts, akin to theatre. The story was written down by Berlioz himself and included in the program of the premiere.
1. An artist is struggling with himself. He meets his Love Interest and falls head over heels, the Leitmotif or Idée fixe is established here. 2. The artist meets her at a ball and her ironic flirting is too much for him. 3. The artist flees into the countryside and has some beautiful calm hours. His Love Interest keeps haunting him, represented by the idée fixe bursting back into the score, so he decides to commit suicide by an opium overdose. 4. In his dying thoughts, he imagines being decapitated in a public execution for killing her inside his fantasies. Played for Laughs musically with a huge march sequence. 5. In a deeper layer of his dying thoughts (think of twice-dead), he imagines his Love Interest participating in a witches' feast, represented in a grotesque parody of the idée fixe juxtaposed with the Dies Irae motif.
The symphony is said to be an expression of Love Hurts on Berlioz' part, who fell madly in love with the actress Harriet Smithson, whom he eventually married after she listened to this musical love letter, but it became an unhappy marriage for both sides and they divorced again.
This piece provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: If it wasn't for Berlioz' detailed story, one could only speculate what this piece was about.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: The Witches' Sabbath movement is the artist's vision of himself at (a parody of) his own funeral.
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: From Downer Beginning of a suffering artist, to the hope of a new love, to love turning into cruel rejection, Lighter and Softer section with peace of mind in the countryside, then unbearable emotional pain when the idée fixe comes back, eventually Driven to Suicide with opium, then an execution scene that becomes Denser and Wackier as it progresses concludes with a Downer Ending which is played for laughs, complete with Dance Party Ending.
- Dance Party Ending: In a prime example of Romantic Irony, the piece ends in a frenetic dance during Witches' Sabbath.
- Deathly Dies Irae: The Trope Codifier, about a third of the way into the "Witches Sabbath" piece, Dies Irae becomes the main line, slowly pounded out on the low brass, like a march of doom.
- Denser and Wackier: The fourth movement and especially the finale, compared to the seriousness of the third movement.
- Despair Event Horizon: The artist overdoses on opium, giving rise to the 4th and 5th movements of the symphony.
- Disney Acid Sequence: In a musical example, he imagines his own execution and then a Witches' Sabbath; the music becomes frenzied and psychedelic.
- Downer Ending: Played for Laughs thanks to massive use of Romantic Irony. The protagonist is ill due to an opium overdose, but his mad hallucinations are quite entertaining, including the Ironic Echo of the centuries-old Dies Irae motif, which turns it into a tasteful self-parody.
- Dying Dream: Big time, the last two movements present what may be his dying thoughts.
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Follow the Leader: Earned a massive cult following among composers. Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner directly picked up on its innovations. - For Doom the Bell Tolls: In "Witches Sabbath" two bells repeatedly strike in a descending fourth interval, then the Dies Irae starts.
- Gainax Ending: The artist hallucinates about being decapitated and then imagines a full-fledged Witches' Sabbath.
- Ironic Echo: The idée fixe is perverted in the finale as a jovial dance motif, invoking a crude way of expressing Hotter and Sexier set in music.
- Leitmotif: The "idée fixe," a short theme representing either the artist's beloved or his obsession with her (or both). It is the main theme of the first movement, reappears at key points in every subsequent movement, and is transformed into a twisted, mocking version of itself during the Dance Party Ending.
- Love Makes You Crazy: The artist goes to the countryside as an attempt to escape his Love Interest, but he keeps seeing her. It's left ambiguous whether she actually is there or if he's just hallucinating.
- Mickey Mousing: "March to the Scaffold" ends with a depiction of the guillotine blade falling and the severed head bouncing.
- Mind Screw: The last two movements are a fantasy of the artist, who madly hallucinates about being decapitated and witnessing a witches feast in which his Love Interest participates.
- Mushroom Samba: The last two acts depict the effects of opium on the artist.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The fourth movement, "March to the Scaffold", is based around a jaunty march. Certainly doesn't sound like a man about to get his head cut off.
