Hector Beriloz's Symphonie Fantastique

This weekend at the Schermerhorn, the Nashville Symphony gets trippy with one of the most mind-blowing pieces of music in the classical repertoire.

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French composer Hector Berlioz was a trailblazer – admired by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, among others – and his Symphonie Fantastique is equal parts beauty and madness.

Autobiographical in nature, it vividly depicts Berlioz’s own imagined hallucinatory journey from the highs of romantic obsession to the depths of betrayal. And there’s a good chance you’re more familiar with the work than you even realize. 

Concerts will take place at 7 p.m. on Thursday November 7, and 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, November 8 & 9. Tickets are available at NashvilleSymphony.org or by calling (615) 687-6400.

Before you go, here is some fun background on Berlioz and the piece Leonard Bernstein described as the first musical expedition into psychedelia.

Berlioz was a little crazy.

Around the time he composed Fantastique, Berlioz became engaged to a young pianist named Camille Molke. But while away in Italy, the composer received a letter from Camille’s mother saying Camille had broken off the engagement and planned to marry a wealthier man instead. 

An enraged Berlioz concocted a plan to travel back to France and kill not only Camille, but her mother, her fiancée, and himself as well, purchasing a pair of pistols and some poison (a back-up in case the pistols jammed). He also had himself fitted for a French maid’s costume, which he would wear to ease his entry into the Molke home. Berlioz realized halfway through his journey home that he had left the maid outfit back in Italy, and decided against carrying out the triple murder/suicide.

The irony of this anecdote is that Symphonie Fantastique is centered around Berlioz’s obsession with another woman – Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, who is portrayed as his “Beloved” in the work. (More on her later.)

He was also REALLY into opium.

Lots of folks used opium in the 19th century for medicinal purposes, including Berlioz, who obviously had his fair share of mental ailments. But the composer’s recreational use of the drug is very evident in Fantastique, which is chock full of nightmarish visions.

It starts out innocently enough. Early on, the narrative has Berlioz pining for his Beloved, and imagining her at a splendid ball and in the serene setting of a meadow. But the piece takes a shocking turn in the final two movements, which plunge the composer into a violent fantasy. 

He attempts suicide by taking opium in the fourth movement, but the drug instead induces a fever dream in which he has murdered his Beloved, is sentenced to death by a bloodthirsty crowd and must witness his own grisly execution. The closing fifth movement – “Witches Sabbath” – takes place in hell, where demons, sorcerers and even the Beloved herself are reveling in Berlioz’s funeral. 

 So about Harriet Smithson…

Berlioz became smitten with Harriet Smithson upon seeing her in a production of Hamlet in Paris in 1827…and then immediately began stalking her. He sent her endless letters and flowers and even rented an apartment near her own so he could keep tabs on her! Naturally, this freaked Smithson out, and she spurned him. Fueled by that rejection (and, of course, opium), Symphonie Fantastique was born.

Hector and Harriet’s love story did have a happy ending (sort of). She eventually caved to Berlioz’s advances after hearing both Fantastique and its sequel, and realizing both works were about her. The two were wed in 1833 – though there’s speculation she was only in it for the money, as the marriage lasted only a few tumultuous years. When she died in 1853, Berlioz had her body exhumed so it could be buried next to his, and the pair now rest together in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. 

You already know this music.

If you’ve seen The Shining, then you have heard Symphonie Fantastique. Director Stanley Kubrick used the “Dies Irae” chant from the dark fifth movement throughout the film. 

The chant’s inclusion in the opening sequence of The Shining creates a palpable sense of fear, while some have suggested it also portends that a day of reckoning is on the horizon – something that comes to fruition in both the film and Fantastique.

Interestingly, the fictional Jack Torrance’s descent into madness during the film mirrors the one Berlioz imagines for himself throughout Symphonie Fantastique, complete with numerous bizarre hallucinations and the attempted murder of loved ones. That fifth movement of Fantastique was also prominently featured in Sleeping with the Enemy, starring Julia Roberts. 

What else you’ll hear.

The concerts kick off with contemporary American composer Andrew Norman’s Unstuck, an equally mind-blowing work that was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. 

British pianist Stephen Hough then takes the stage as the featured soloist on Felix Mendelsssohn’s First Piano Concerto. Considered one of contemporary music’s most brilliant artists and thinkers, Hough is also a prolific composer and recording artist, writer and painter, and was described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” 

Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, an anthology of essays by Hough on his experiences as a musician and his thoughts on major issues of the day, will be published in the U.S. in February.