DESCRIPTION:
interesting short animated film illustrating the fascinating music of Berlioz

The fifth movement: Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a witches' Sabbath); The idée fixe has now become a "vulgar dance tune", it is played on the E-flat clarinet. There are lots of effects, including ghostly col legno playing in the strings, the bubbling of the witches' cauldron played by the wind instruments. As the dance reaches a climax we hear the Dies Irae (Day of Judgement) melody together with the Ronde du Sabbat (Sabbath Round) which is a wild fugue.



The Symphonie fantastique is a symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It is one of the most famous Romantic works for orchestra. The official title of the piece is Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste (An Episode in the Life of the Artist) , but it is always called by its subtitle Symphonie Fantastique which means Fantasy Symphony. The "Fantasy" refers to the story that is described by the music. (Fantasy Symphony is a better translation than Fantastic Symphony because fantastique is not like the modern meaning of the English word fantastic).

The symphony lasts about 45 minutes and is divided into 5 movements. Berlioz himself wrote down the story that the music describes, just as Beethoven had done with his Sixth Symphony. Berlioz's work is about a young artist. In the music the young artist is represented by a tune. This tune is often heard during the symphony. That is why it is called an "idée fixe", which means a "fixed idea", i.e. an idea that keeps coming again and again. An idée fixe is what Wagner would have called a leitmotif (a tune which is always used to describe a particular person or thing in a piece of music). The first performance took place at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. Berlioz made several changes to the music between 1831 and 1845.