Romantic Aspects of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Essay Example

Symphony Orchestra League, emerged in the 1990s as the most frequently performed orchestral work in America. It has been heralded in the same breath as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, largely because the work was originally produced during the time of Beethoven’s last years, but also but also because like Beethoven’s work it can be directly connected to Romanticism. A characteristic of music in the Romantic era was to have a unified sound composed of diverse chords that implied a rural feeling of nature.  “One strategy Berlioz uses to unify the Symphonie fantastique is to have a melody, which he calls an idée fixe, appear in each of the five movements, sometimes in quite different guises. This purely musical technique—thematic transformation—supports an extramusical, programmatic, literary, and ultimately personal goal (Gibbs, 2007).” These movements coalesce all of the musical fragments to have a natural blend of tone and sound. This fluid nature coincides well with Romantic ideals.

Nature was a significant part of Romanticism and can be seen as a significant part of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fanastque. As Gibbs notes it’s hard for any musical historian to bring up Romanticism without first mentioning this piece, “Not only is the Symphonie fantastique ubiquitous in concerts and on recordings, it turns up in nearly every music appreciation textbook as the quintessential example of musical Romanticism (Gibbs, 2007).” The author argues that Berlioz piece is a central fixture in contemporary talks about Romanticism. An example of this could be seen in the fact that the work is treated like a continuation of Beethoven’s last symphony. It’s popularity holds it in a similar light.

Work Cited

Gibbs, C. H. (2007). Symphonie fantastique, op.14. Retrieved from http://www.livedownloads.com/labels/prognotes_berli.pdf