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SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, Op. 14 (Movements IV & V)
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'AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN ARTIST, OPUS 14' WAS WRITTEN BY FRENCH COMPOSER HECTOR BERLOIZ IN 1830. MVMTS. IV- 'MARCH TO THE GALLOWS' & V- 'DREAM OF THE WITCHES' SABBATH'. HISTORY SUGGESTS HE COMPOSED A PORTION OF THIS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF OPIUM.
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Contemporary band compositions, classical music arrangements, marches, jazz, symphonies, overtures. A collection from bands that I have played in throughout hi
Hello and welcome! "Symphonic Band Performances" is a compilation of recordings from several high school and college bands that I played in including the TMEA (Texas) All State Band, the TMEA Region X All Region Band, the Interlochen Arts Academy National Music Camp, the Cal Poly Tech Band, San Luis Obispo, the USAF Golden West Band, and recordings from my h.s. band, Beaumont H.S. and a few band recordings that were passed down to me. Also included are various All State groups and college and university bands. I participated and played in the large majority of these recordings. There are no professional recordings here and every recording is Public Domain. Most are available for free download. Each song has been converted from the original analog or digital source and edited with Audacity or Dak software. In the majority of these recordings, I play the tenor sax or alto sax, b flat or e flat clarinet, or directing. I was drum major for 2 years in high school, I have a BA from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where I studied music ed, composition and theory. I had about 500 more recordings I was planning to digitize and upload, but this past Nov. 20th, my home was completely destroyed by fire, and all the contents, including all my music and instruments. So, this is it. Please feel free to post a comment here or on my member page. If you like, please become a fan by clicking "I'm a fan" below.
Song Info
Genre
Classical • Symphonic
Charts
Peak #56
Peak in subgenre #13
Author
Hector Berlioz - 1830
Rights
public domain
Uploaded
November 18, 2009
Track Files
MP3
MP3 21.6 MB • 224 kbps • 13:28
Story behind the song
This is performed by the University of Southern California Wind Orchestra in 1977. The conductor is William A. Schaefer who arranged this piece and well over one hundred more for concert band. He also had a television series "Discovering Music" on CBS in the early seventies. An Episode in the Life of an Artist Opus 14, usually referred to by its subtitle Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony) is a symphony written by French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is widely regarded as one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences worldwide. The first performance took place at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. The work was repeatedly revised between 1831 and 1845. The symphony is a piece of program music which tells the story of "an artist gifted with a lively imagination" who has "poisoned himself with opium" in the "depths of despair" because of "hopeless love." Berlioz provided his own program notes for each movement of the work. He prefaces his notes with the following instructions: Fourth movement: "Marche au supplice" (March to the Scaffold) From Berlioz's program notes: Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four bars reappear like a final thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow. Berlioz claimed to have written the fourth movement in a single night, reconstructing music from an unfinished project, the opera Les francs-juges. The movement begins with timpani sextuplets in thirds, for which he directs: "The first quaver of each half-bar is to be played with two drum sticks, and the other five with the right hand drum-sticks". The movement proceeds as a march filled with blaring horns and rushing passages, and scurrying figures which would later show up again in the last movement. Prior to the musical depiction of his execution, there is a brief, nostalgic recollection fixed in a solo clarinet, as though representing the last conscious thought of the soon to be executed man. Immediately following this is a single short fortissimo G minor chord that represents the fatal blow of the guillotine blade; the series of pizzicato notes following represents the rolling of the severed head into the basket. After his death, the final nine bars of the movement contain a victorious series of tutti G major chords, seemingly intended to convey the cheering of the onlooking throng. Fifth movement: "Songe d'une nuit de sabbat"(Dreams of a Witch's Sabbath) From Berlioz's program notes: He sees himself at a witches sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath. Roar of delight at her arrival. She joins the diabolical orgy. The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae. The return as a "vulgar dance tune" is depicted with a prominent E-flat clarinet solo. There are a host of effects, including eerie col legno playing in the strings, the bubbling of the witches' cauldron to the blasts of wind. It is important to remember that Berlioz's
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