Symphonie Fantastique
During the 19th century the literacy in Europe leaped from less than 50% to over 90% at the start of the 20th century. Magazines dedicated to reviews of art and music events, theatre and ballet became very popular, influential newspapers like The Times (1785), The Guardian (1821), The New York Times (1851) or the Kölnische Zeitung (1805) were founded. A well-educated bourgeois audience emerged and gradually gained social importance.
Reading became a favourite pastime and the interest in novels increased with a growing demand for "psychological" topics, where inner developments are the source for action and adventures.
All these are important conditions for an artistic personality such as Hector Berlioz, who worked not only as a composer but also as a music critic, making it possible to draw attention to his musical work by using his abilities to write and publish his articles in the popular music magazines and papers. At the same time he enjoyed presenting himself to the public, with a certain flair for mystification, he is for example quoted as saying "My life is a novel that interests me very much", just as well he could have said "My music is a novel that interests me very much".
In October 1830 the 27-year-old Berlioz published an article with the title "Sur la musique classique et la musique romantique". In this he proclaims that the romantic composer must have only one concern, to find and use unrestricted inspiration. He must not refrain from but use everything that might inspire him. Every artist should follow Victor Hugo's call to a renewal of language and art and break out of the classical dogma ("Preface of Cromwell", 1827).
Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique", performed in December 1830 for the first time, was widely received as a "drama" in the theatrical sense and even Berlioz himself called the symphony a "drame instrumental", the numerous scenic-imaginative moments are of irrefutable clarity.
He also mentions the term "roman" (novel) for his groundbreaking symphony, already so in a letter dating from April 1830, in which he sketches the "programme" for the composition. The "vagues des passions", one of his favourite keywords, together with his references to Chateaubriands novel character "René" imply a shared basis in the idea of a psychological story, the novel.
The "Symphonie fantastique" is set in a sphere of dream and imagination, the emotions of the "vagues des passions" are mono-personal, refer only to the fictional ego. All actions, developments, even monologues are experienced within the self, the symphony is a voyage to the inner feelings and the ego.
The hero's descent to hell is a modern version of Dante's inferno. Modern inasmuch as it is not the representation of the affects and passions anymore but the expression of the own substantial sufferings and their awareness. Hell is no more an external place of fear but recognized within the depth of the self.
The discovery of the "ego" and its manifold layers is one of the greatest achievements of the romantic age, from Karl Philipp Moritz' novel "Anton Reiser" (around 1785) to the dream interpretation of Sigmund Freud (around 1900) this includes disturbing, negative and painful insights.
Berlioz' main aim was to create a perfect instrumental drama, in which all actions, motivation and sentiments are expressed in the language of music, but as much as the scenes of the "Symphonie fantastique" appear vivid and full of movement they are completely imaginary and pure internal projection. Inside and outside are two aspects of the same: the ego. An ego, as fictional as in literature.
Perceivably in the romantic age the inspiration for compositions shifts from drama towards an orientation on the novel. The symphonic concept is often held together by an "ego", a fictional, imaginary and even partly hidden character. The subject of content is conscious of its own sensations and is capable to reflect upon these, in the centre of the composition as in the modern novel. It was the novel not the drama that had become the genre of the beginning modern age with authors such as Balzac, Flaubert, Dostojewski or Dickens.
As in literature new concepts of authorship developed, the novel gained more and more importance: Unlike the drama the novel is primarily received individually and in private allowing the author to communicate with the reader in a very intimate manner. Autobiographical content was focused on. The personal view on the environment was and still is the centre of the novel where the impact of the drama is defeated by the conditions of performance and the by far more complicated interactions of the theatre companies.
And the rapidly growing and spreading of popular press was welcomed and again nourished by personalities enjoying the public attention they could generate.
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