The name, Hector Berlioz [1803-1869] and his Symphonie Fantastique, has instigated great turmoil among musical scholars throughout history. Berlioz is a unique composer in the eyes of the music world. People either love or hate him. When one hears the names of Beethoven, Brahms, or Mendelssohn, there is no opposition to consider these men as first rank composers. On the contrary, Berlioz is a name that tends to cause strong differences of opinions between people. One of the questions between the opposing sides is not where does Berlioz rank among the great composers, but does he really belong there at all? Critics such as Robert Schumann and Camille Saint-Saëns were supporters of Berlioz. In A Symphony by Berlioz, Schumann acknowledged Berlioz as a highly musical young man. He wrote, “After having gone through the Berlioz symphony countless times, at first dumbfounded, then shocked, and at last struck with wonderment.” On the contrary, critic Donald Francis Tovey did not favor Berlioz. In the sixth volume of Tovey’s Essays in Musical Analysis, Tovey delivered a harsh analysis of Berlioz and his Symphonie Fantastique claiming that Berlioz is a “Berlioz.” He coins this term by claiming Berlioz’s compositional process to be full of mistakes and these mistakes are corrected by creating other mistakes. By doing this, Berlioz creates a hole in which he falls into within his compositions. Tovey explains this by writing, “There is not sufficient reason for believing that the most promising student is the one who never gets into a hole; but there is still less reason for supposing that every student who spends all his time getting into holes is a Berlioz.” Interestingly enough, Edward T. Cone tends to fall into the middle of the opposin...
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Berlioz, Hector. Les Francs-juges. In Hector Berlioz Werke, Serie II, Band 4. Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1836.
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Newman, Ernest. Berlioz, Romantic and Classic Writings by Ernest Newman. Edited by Peter Heyworth. London: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1973.
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Tovey, Donald Francis. Essays In Musical Analysis Volume VI. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.
The author compares Berlioz, a man of music to Cooper, a man of anatomy and surgery, to show that it is the desire for knowledge of interest that drove them to the peak of success in their respective fields. The author cites what William Hazlitt, an opponent of the romantic age said about the anatomist ’s that he likes to see the objects related to their subject as it create new thoughts in the student's minds that ultimately overcomes the pain but he dislikes the prospect of the corpse that presents to ordinary
Felsenfeld described his “passion for this ‘other’ kind of music felt like the height of rebellion: I was the lone Bolshevik in my army” (pg. 626). He further defined his description by stating how “[r]ebels sought to break the mold, to do something that was exclusively ‘theirs,’ to be weird by way of self-expression,” and compared this idea of a rebel to himself: “... since I [he] was the only one I knew listening to symphonies and concerti, operas and string quartets, I felt I was the weirdest of them all; …,” signifying that he feels much like a rebel in his own musical vibe (pg. 626). Taking this feeling of rebellious passion and amazement of classical music, Felsenfeld “... decided, with little prior experience or interest, to become a composer,” ultimately changing his way and mood of life for the better by working in a career with music that he most irresistibly loves and people who share similar feelings to his own in contrast to the work he took up in piano bars and community theater orchestra pits where the music he felt were utterly dull and lifeless (pg.
8. Waley, Arthur, and Joseph Roe. Allen. The Book of Songs. New York: Grove, 1996. Print.
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Willoughby, David. "Chapter 11." The World of Music. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 249-53. Print.
In terms on contributions to Classical-Era music, Stamitz is credited with many innovations. As the concertmaster of the Mannheim orchestra, he lead it to a standard unparalleled in it's day. Another extremely influential contribution...
Ostlere, Hilary. “Taming The Musical.” Dance Magazine 73.12 (1999): 84. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005.
Hector Berlioz wrote the Symphonie fantastique at the age of 27. He based the program on his own impassioned life and transferred his memoirs into his best- known program symphony. The story is about a love sick, depressed young artist, while in his despair poisons himself with opium. His beloved is represented throughout the symphony by the symbolic idee fixe. There are five movements throughout symphony. The program begins with the 1st movement: Reveries, Passions symbolizing the artist's life prior to meeting his beloved. This is represented as a mundaness and indefinable searching or yearning, until suddenly, he meets her and his longing abruptly ceases and is replaced by volcanic love. The soaring melody becomes the Idee fixe and is introduced in this section.
9. Bouguereau, William A. Psyche et L'Amour. 1889. Private Collection. Art In the Picture. 2014. 25 Jan. 2014 .
Grove, George. The Musical Times Volume 47. United Kingdom: Musical Times Publications Ltd. 1906, Print.
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Lee, M. Owen. “Max Bruch: 1938-1920.” The Great Instrumental Works. Pompton Plains (NJ): Amadeus, 2005. 168-69. Print.
Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. Great Britain: Yale University Press, 1978. Print.
Burkeholder, Peter J. et al, A History of Western Music, New York, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd, 2010. 626 -632