The Symphonie Fantastique is haunted by an idée fixe, a recurrent melody symbolizing the beloved, which was a prototype for Wagner's Leitmotiv.
Composer Biography
Hector Berlioz, the composer, initially studied medicine as his father insisted, but abandoned it to become a musician.
Composer's Artistic Vision
In 1830, the autobiographical nature of the Symphonie Fantastique, described as 'An Episode in the Life of an Artist', represented something entirely new in music.
Composition History
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique was written in reaction to his intense and unreciprocated passion for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he later married.
Composer Biography
Berlioz's first visit to a dissecting-room, described in his Memoirs, provided a startling disincentive to medicine, as he saw birds fighting for human lung scraps and rats gnawing vertebrae.
Performer Biography
Yoav Talmi, the conductor, won the Koussevitzky Memorial Conducting Prize and the Rupert Conductor's Competition in London.
Performer Biography
Yoav Talmi, the conductor, served as Music Director of the San Diego Symphony in California from 1989 until 1996.
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