Symphonie Fantastique

In his Symphonie fantastique, the young Berlioz bared his soul in music, torturing himself with passion — some might say obsession — for his beloved. Through tender love scenes, a thrilling march to the scaffold, and an opium-induced nightmare, Berlioz’s riveting masterpiece is unforgettable.

Witches, ghouls, and ghosts abound in this wonderfully wicked concert led by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste … en cinq parties (Fantastic Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist … in Five Sections) Op. 14, is a programmatic symphony written by Hector Berlioz in 1830. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire on 5 December 1830.

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its Music Director Rafael Payare explore Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Le carnaval romain - two works that reveal the composer’s flair for drama, colour, and psychological intensity.

Klaus Mäkelä’s forthcoming album with the Orchestre de Paris will be released on Friday, June 6, 2025 on Decca Classics. This is the third album in Mäkelä’s series with the orchestra and features two famous French works: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Ravel’s La Valse.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Hector Berlioz's death, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Philippe Jordan dedicated a programmatic focus to the French composer in the 2018-19 season. In this context, in November 2018, Philippe Jordan presented the frequently performed Symphonie fantastique op. 14 in the Wiener Musikverein, her rarely heard sister work Lélio ou Le retour à la vie op. 14b. The acclaimed concert experience now also appears as a live recording on the orchestra's own label of the orchestra. Soloists include not only tenor Cyrille Dubois and baritone Florian Sempey, but also the acclaimed French bass Jean-Philippe Lafonte as narrator and the Singverein led by Johannes Prinz.

A world might seem to divide the unbridled Romanticism of Berlioz from the highly controlled Late Baroque art of Rameau. However, separated by less than a century, the same passion links these two works that prove more similar than their stylistic divergence might suggest. There is the same audacity in orchestration, combined with an innate sense of drama that springs repeated rhythmic and harmonic surprises. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra shows its versatility under Daniel Harding, who posses a matchless gift for establishing a dialogue between these two pioneering geniuses.

“Berlioz’s greatest interpreter of modern times recorded it three times, but this most recent version is the most gripping and satisfying, deftly treading a fine line between self-revelation and self-indulgence. The volcanic outpourings of feeling are as intense as they should be, yet in the quieter moments – Davis achieves a wonderfully expressive pianissimo, in which every detail seems to convey meaning’ (Gramophone)

It is an important piece of the early Romantic period, and is popular with concert audiences worldwide. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. The work was repeatedly revived between 1831 and 1845 and subsequently became a favourite in Paris.