Berlioz: Fantastic Symphony

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Image courtesy of L'Auditori

The overture to Les Francs-juges is considered Hector Berlioz’s first orchestral work. However, dissatisfied with this opera of his youth, he destroyed most of the score, preserving—in addition to the overture, which Liszt adapted for piano—only materials that he would reuse in the “Marche au supplice” of the Symphonie fantastique. This memorably unsettling composition laces nightmares with the longing for a beauty lost or never attained.

The programmatic hallucinations of the symphony transport the listener to a barely luminous reality—to the realm of extreme passions where the Romantic imagination is unleashed—and spring from the despair of an unrequited lover. The composer’s love for the actress Harriet Smithson—who inspires the plot—was, however, reciprocal.

Equally rooted in concrete circumstances—in a century dramatically shaped by war—is the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Maurice Ravel composed it for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, brother of the renowned philosopher, who had lost an arm in World War I. On this occasion, the concert will be performed by Anna Vinnitskaya and conducted by Louis Langrée.

Program

• Héctor Berlioz: Les Francs-Juges, op. 3 (1826) 13′
• Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D (1929-30) 19′
• Héctor Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 (1830) 55’

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