Winter Showcase Program Notes
Written by Bradley Carpiuc (Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra Class of 2025)
Roman Carnival Overture
Berlioz’s opera Benvenuto Cellini, loosely based on the life of its titular sculptor and goldsmith, premiered in 1838 to remarkably poor reception. Berlioz writes in his Memoirs that it was “Unmercifully hissed” by the audience. The opera underwent several revisions, yet those efforts were similarly unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Berlioz believed that his opera “shows an originality, a raciness and a brilliancy that I shall, probably, never have again and which deserve a better fate.” Berlioz had a practice of re-using themes from previous pieces, especially those that were unfinished (even Berlioz’s perhaps most famous melody—the idée fixe from the Symphonie Fantastique—is borrowed from his early cantata Herminie). And so, the Roman Carnival Overture was born out of themes from his failed opera Benvenuto Cellini.
The melody of the Overture’s opening English Horn solo is taken (almost verbatim) from the love-duet from Scene 3 of the first act between Cellini and Teresa. But the Overture then proceeds in a different direction from the opera. The percussion (triangle, cymbals, and no less than two tambourines) signals a transition into the vigorous and colorful saltarello, a rapid 6/8 Italian folk dance that Mendelssohn would famously go on to use in his Italian Symphony. The saltarello is borrowed from the opera as well, specifically from the finale to Act I, which takes place immediately before a cannon signals the end of Carnival. The Roman Carnival Overture was very successful in comparison to the opera. “I rushed the allegro at the proper time and everything went perfectly,” writes Berlioz, after conducting a performance of the overture. “The audience cried ‘encore,’ and the second time was even better than the first . . . I never felt so happy conducting as I did that day.”
Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major
It is said that Mozart did not often write pieces for instruments he didn’t particularly enjoy—“I become quite unwell whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I do not like,” he once wrote in a letter. Such is the case with the Concerto for Flute and Harp, an unusual combination of instruments to start with, and also two instruments which Mozart did not seem to have a particular inclination for. This concerto is the only Mozart work featuring the harp, and one of just a half-dozen or so that uses the flute in a solo or chamber setting. Yet he produced the work due to a commission from the Comte de Guines, a French diplomat and amateur flautist. Furthermore, his daughter was one of Mozart’s composition students and a proficient harpist herself.
The first movement is a fairly typical classical concerto opening movement, with a spirited first theme and more graceful second theme presented in succession. The second movement has an exquisite lyricism to it and may be among Mozart’s most loved pieces. Despite being in the major, it has a certain air of melancholy to it. The final movement is a lively rondo (Mozart used the French spelling Rondeau, presumably in deference to his commissioner), with a similar atmosphere of buoyancy to the first movement.
Symphonie Fantastique
In 1827, Berlioz would have his first encounter with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson—a touring production of Hamlet in which Smithson played the role of Ophelia. Despite minimal contact between the two, he would develop an intense romantic obsession for her, which would culminate in his magnum opus, the Symphonie Fantastique.
The Symphonie Fantastique (or in full, Symphonie Fantastique: Episode in the Life of an Artist … in five sections) is a somewhat autobiographical work, drawing from his longing for Smithson. Put simply, the plot concerns an unnamed artist who is infatuated with his beloved, yet his love is unrequited; in despair, he poisons himself with opium and suffers from nightmarish hallucinations.
The entire symphony is tied together by a single theme, which Berlioz referred to as the idée fixe, or the “fixed idea,” a musical stand-in for the artist’s beloved, representing Harriet Smithson. It is introduced by violins and solo flute towards the very beginning of the symphony, and Berlioz has the theme occur in all five movements of the symphony. More than just for structural purposes, the idée fixe always has some sort of dramatic function—specifically, the appearance of the artist’s beloved. Berlioz’s original program notes are below, which details his use of the idée fixe.
Reveries; Passions. The first movement is in two sections, a brief Adagio followed by a long Allegro. The subject is an artist gifted with a lively imagination. The theme of the beloved [the idée fixe] appears in the Allegro for the first time. The artist is subjected to floods of passion, tenderness, jealousy, fury, fear…
A Ball. The hero is at a grand ball, but the tumult cannot distract him. “She” appears in oboe and flute among the whirling dancers.
Scene in the Country. After great agitation, he finds hope and believes his feelings to be requited. In the country, he hears two herdsmen play a ranz des vaches. This plunges him into a delicious reverie, and we hear again the idée fixe. He is again filled with doubt. Silence.
March to the Scaffold. He attempts to poison himself with opium but is instead subjected to a horrible dream: He has killed his beloved. He is to be executed, and, even worse, must witness his own execution. At the march’s end, she reappears—but her picture is obliterated by the final blow.
Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath. He finds himself at a witches’ revel, surrounded by sorcerers and monsters. The melody of his beloved [the idée fixe], which has thus far been noble and full of grace, is transformed into a drunkard’s song: It is the beloved coming to the revels, to assist at the funeral of her victim. She is no longer anything but a courtesan, worthy of participation in such an orgy. The ceremony begins. The bells toll. A choir chants the Dies irae, which is then parodied by the other choirs. The Dies irae mingles with the wild revelry at its height—and the vision comes to an end.
And Berlioz writes that the “vision comes to an end,” since even though the symphony has concluded, the story of the artist is not canonically finished. There is a sequel to the Symphonie, the monodrama Lélio; or, the Return to Life, which features narration, chorus, and songs, but the work has faded largely into obscurity. Yet it is still important to the story of the Symphonie. In the preface to Lélio, Berlioz writes “this work should be performed immediately after the Symphonie Fantastique, which it indeed supplements and concludes.” The artist awakens from his drug-induced dream, waxes poetic about Shakespeare, and continues to long for his beloved. The idée fixe makes a few appearances, and the piece concludes with a rehearsal of the artist’s own “Fantasy on Shakespeare’s Tempest.” With the heavy focus on Shakespeare, the connections to Smithson are made even more explicit.
Harriet Smithson attended performances of both Symphonie Fantastique and Lélio. Smithson realized that both works were fundamentally about her, and somewhat improbably, the two married each other not long after. Ironically, the marriage proved to be unhappy for both of them, and they eventually separated.
Despite being written just three years after Beethoven’s death, the Symphonie Fantastique contains numerous musical innovations, and remains a seminal work in music history. There are many innovations in its orchestration: the scale of the work would have already had few precedents. It also contains one of the first uses of the harp as an orchestral instrument. It is the first use of church bells in the orchestra; modern-day tubular bells would not have existed yet (Berlioz actually advises to use “several pianos” as a substitute in the then likely case that actual bells would not be available). Of course, both instruments are now standard parts of the orchestra. He also calls for two ophicleides, a bassoon-shaped brass instrument that would find mild popularity with French Romantic composers but is now a rarity and usually substituted by tuba. There are unprecedented extremes in dynamics, ranging from pppp to ff, to parallel the piece’s extremes in emotional intensity. And the quotation of the medieval plainchant Dies Irae to represent death would become its own sort of idée fixe, used from Liszt to Rachmaninoff to modern-day film composers. In many ways, the Symphonie Fantastique is perhaps the first definitive work of the Romantic era.