Valery Gergiev, the conductor on this album, became Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2007 and is also Artistic Director of several international festivals.
Composer Biography
Hector Berlioz, born in 1803, was sent to Paris at 17 to study medicine but instead became a pupil of composer Jean-François Le Sueur.
Composition History
Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, his first major orchestral work, was influenced by the music of Gluck and Spontini, and profoundly by Beethoven and Weber.
Recording & Production
This album was recorded live in DSD on October 31 and November 14, 2013, at the Barbican, London.
Critical Reception
Music critic Michael Steinberg called Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique 'the most remarkable First Symphony ever written,' despite its genre-mixing approach.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Berlioz viewed his Symphonie fantastique as an 'instrumental drama' that required a literary program to explain its context, as it lacked speech.
Compositional Technique
The Symphonie fantastique features an 'idée fixe', a recurring melody 40 bars long, which evolves from a solo line to a full orchestral statement.
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