In What Aspects Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique Is Influential to the Development of Music in the Romantic Era?
- Submitted by: fox1401
- Views: 1057
- Category: Arts
- Date Submitted: 03/30/2011 09:34 PM
- Pages: 3
- Report this Essay
In What Aspects Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is Influential to the Development of Music in the Romantic Era?
by
Wong Shing Yu (08691051)
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is influential to the development of music in the Romantic era in three aspects. The first is the use of the signature motive “idée fixe”. Berlioz wrote in his essay “De l’imitation musicale”:
The aim of the second kind of imitation, as we have said before, is to reproduce the intonations of the passions and the emotions, and even to trace a musical image, or metaphor, of objects that can only be seen.[1]
Although thematic materials are already observed in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” 6th, Berlioz’s procedure is dictated by poetical as well as musical consideration. It leads directly to Liszt’s practice in his symphonic poems. It precedes Wagner’s use of musical “leitmotifs” to depict characters and ideas in his operas. Julian Rushton wrote in his book:
Symphonie Fantastique, virtually quoted at the start of the ‘Mephistopheles’ movement in Liszt’s Faust Symphony, has an assured place in the history of the programmatic invasion of the concert repertoire by the theatrical and the subjective.[2]
The second aspect is the use of Dies Irae melody. In many of musical works of the Romantic era such as Mahler’s first symphony, Liszt’s Totentanz – Paraphrase on “Dies irae” and Saint-Saens’s Danse Macabre, the Dies Irae theme from the fifth movement of Symphonie Fantastique is being used as a frequent quotation or homage to Berlioz. From the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musician, it is said:
Since Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (1830), a rich and productive symbolism has grown up round the ancient melody, embracing not only death and the fear of death, but also the supernatural (Saint-Saens’s Danse Macabre, 1874).[3]
The third aspect is the novel instrumentation. It was after Symphonie Fantastique when the use of harps, cornets, ophicleides became more often. The...
by
Wong Shing Yu (08691051)
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is influential to the development of music in the Romantic era in three aspects. The first is the use of the signature motive “idée fixe”. Berlioz wrote in his essay “De l’imitation musicale”:
The aim of the second kind of imitation, as we have said before, is to reproduce the intonations of the passions and the emotions, and even to trace a musical image, or metaphor, of objects that can only be seen.[1]
Although thematic materials are already observed in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” 6th, Berlioz’s procedure is dictated by poetical as well as musical consideration. It leads directly to Liszt’s practice in his symphonic poems. It precedes Wagner’s use of musical “leitmotifs” to depict characters and ideas in his operas. Julian Rushton wrote in his book:
Symphonie Fantastique, virtually quoted at the start of the ‘Mephistopheles’ movement in Liszt’s Faust Symphony, has an assured place in the history of the programmatic invasion of the concert repertoire by the theatrical and the subjective.[2]
The second aspect is the use of Dies Irae melody. In many of musical works of the Romantic era such as Mahler’s first symphony, Liszt’s Totentanz – Paraphrase on “Dies irae” and Saint-Saens’s Danse Macabre, the Dies Irae theme from the fifth movement of Symphonie Fantastique is being used as a frequent quotation or homage to Berlioz. From the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musician, it is said:
Since Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (1830), a rich and productive symbolism has grown up round the ancient melody, embracing not only death and the fear of death, but also the supernatural (Saint-Saens’s Danse Macabre, 1874).[3]
The third aspect is the novel instrumentation. It was after Symphonie Fantastique when the use of harps, cornets, ophicleides became more often. The...