Talk:Symphonie fantastique

Orchestration

Is it just me, or does the score only specify 2 harps, not 4. I am not a Berlioz expert, but my score clearly has 2 harps listed, and in the second movement, it uses the singular "arpa" (as opposed to "arpe") for the parts. (Dover miniature reproduction of Breitkopf and Hartel Public domain edition). Also, the article refers to "a published score." It would be nice to know the edition. --Snailey! IF you need to tell me something - Like that's gonna happen 16:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I had the pleasure to listen to this symphony performed and they used only two harps. But, if you read the description of the second movement, you'll see that there isn't a specified number. Clearly, it demands only two to be performed, but it's up to the conductor.

--User:Deafussy19:46, 23 May 2008

References?

What is the sourcing for the statement that "Leonard Bernstein called Symphonie Fantastique the first musical expedition into psychedelia"? And was it a direct quote by Bernstein? If so, "the first musical expedition into psychedelia" should be in quotation marks.

Here is your reference -- a script from Bernstein's Young Persons Concerts http://www.leonardbernstein.com/studio/element2.asp?id=383 DavidRF 04:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

"Vulgar"?

I'm curious to know who called the second movement "vulgar". Without a reference, I think this sentence should be removed. --Todeswalzer 22:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The second movement is a waltz, which was a bit of a risque dance for this early in the romantic era. Symphonies of this time period had Scherzos (or earlier they had Minuets) but they didn't have Waltzes. "Vulgar" is in Berlioz's program notes, but for the shrilly clarinet version of the idee fixe in the final movement. Perhaps there was some confusion with the quote? DavidRF 04:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The phrase runs like this:

While one critic called it "vulgar", the intent was to portray a single lonely soul amidst gaiety, as Berlioz wrote while composing it.

The issue is that it merely says "one critic" -- my question is, who said that and what is the source? --Todeswalzer|Talk 23:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Berlioz's Program Notes

Berlioz's own program notes should really be incorporated into this article. They are pretty easy to find on the web by googling 'symphonie fantastique program'. DavidRF 04:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

idée fixe

"again, derived from the idée fixe" - this appears to be the only sentence concerning the idée fixe and no further explanation is given. Most strange.

Good point. The article looks like it was clipped together from many other program notes and no one read the whole thing to make sure that it makes sense. The idee fixe ("fixed idea" or obsessive musical thought) is a melody that recurs throughout the work. It represents the main character's unrequited love. Its introduced about five minutes into the first movement and developed extensively there. It recurs in each of the remaining movements. It greatly increases the enjoyment of the piece if one understands its meaning, (yet I'll admit it took a while for the concept to catch on with me). Anyhow, if some with better writing skills could pound the idea of the idee fixe home in this article that would be great. Or perhaps the original Berlioz program notes could be included! (see above) They were written in 1830, they can't still be under copyright. DavidRF 16:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Importance of contemporary interpretations

Basil Twist's recent new performance based on the score of Symphonie Fantastique was a widely acclaimed and award winning new production that seems to me a relevant notation about the original composition. It shows its relevance today and seems to me similar to other entries on contemporary theatre and its historical roots. Please do explain why this doesn't seem a relevant addition. Should it be shorter (perhaps removing the theatres performed in)? Or is there something else at issue? -Flippedout 06:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe it should stay in, but it certainly needs to be rewritten: as it stands, it reads like a marketing piece by the producers. Would be nice to make it a bit more, as they say, encyclopedic. +ILike2BeAnonymous 18:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

L'Idée fixe

I would like to incorporate some discussion on the Idée fixe, in part by reproducing the theme as a musical notation file in the article; however, the complete theme itself runs to 40 measures in length and I'm concerned that it's too large. This is it:

Any ideas how to make this more compact?

Either way, the theme -- as a most original (and influential) idea, not to mention its role in holding the symphony together -- deserves a more detailed discussion on this page. Comments would be most welcome. --Todeswalzer|Talk 07:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You could clip it at measure 33 and call it enough, since that's the salient part of the theme, maybe indicate the remainder with ellipsis. Anyway, I wouldn't be against including it.

You could also just shrink it down and make it into a thumbnail "teaser" that the user could click on to see full-size.

And what about including permutations of the idée, such as near the end of the "ball"?

By the way, I'm curious: how do you produce that? Finale? Coda? +ILike2BeAnonymous 08:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think what I might do is include as a full graphic everything up to the first half of measure 16, use an elipsis to indicate that more follows, and include a link to the full theme somewhere near-by. My only concern with this is that it would cut out the whole middle section, which seems -- to me anyway -- to represent the feeling of longing and forlorness, something which no doubt would come up elsewhere in the article. (However, regardless of where we cut the theme off, it would probably be a good idea as well to include an audio file of it in its entirety)

With regard to the various permutations of the Idée which appear throughout the symphony, I would also like to include them in the sections discussing their respective movements, such as the Waltz theme and the variation that appears in the fifth movement. (I only have the score for the fifth movement, so the other parts won't be immediately available.) Also, I need to verify that the Idée is in fact first introduced in C major, which is the key I've used to represent it in my notation file. (And as for your question, ILike2BeAnonymous, I did in fact use Finale to create the notation file: it's an excellent program. Leave me a message on my talk page if you'd like some more information...) --Todeswalzer|Talk 18:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Rosen reproduces a mini-score of the idée in his Romantic Generation book. Using the key from the first movement is probably the best idea. You are right, it is a bit long and not the simplest of tunes to follow on a score sheet. The idée really is the key to following and enjoying the work though and I strongly recommend its inclusion in the article. Audio files would help a great deal as well. DavidRF 16:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Weak, unencyclopedic writing

I'd like to offer the following as an example of what seems to me to be a preponderance of weak, armchair-musical criticism in this article:

The third movement opens with the English horn and offstage oboe tossing back and forth a characteristic melody to evoke the sound of shepherd's pipes in the mountains. The entire movement represents a pastorale with dialogues among piping shepherds, as the artist thinks of his beloved while he walks in the country. This intent, to evoke a spirit of the countryside inhabited not by mere rustics, but by people who were one with their place, is part of Romanticism and can be traced back to the ideas of such writers as Goethe. The idée fixe returns. The movement swells to a peak, as if the artist is pushing away the idea of his beloved, and then the dramatic sounds fall away. The sound of distant thunder comes, in an innovative passage for four timpani players on two sets of timpani. The movement ends without resolution.

Notice there are no references. And there is certainly a good deal that's true in this paragraph. But this isn't the worst of it: Where is "the intent ... to evoke a spirit of the countryside ..."? Far too much mushy-headed fluff and nonsense. Someone (preferably someone who knows something the hell about music and Berlioz, and not just another Wiki-pinhead) needs to go through this stuff and separate the wheat from the vast amount of chaff here. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This definitely deserves a clean-up. You are right about that. In this particular case, though, a lot of the "mushy-headed fluff and nonsense" is actually Berlioz's. Berlioz wrote two sets of program notes (1845, 1855) for this work and also wrote about it in his memoirs. Here is the 1845 program for the movement you mention:

One evening in the countryside he hears two shepherds in the distance dialoguing with their ‘ranz des vaches’; this pastoral duet, the setting, the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind, some causes for hope that he has recently conceived, all conspire to restore to his heart an unaccustomed feeling of calm and to give to his thoughts a happier colouring. He broods on his loneliness, and hopes that soon he will no longer be on his own… But what if she betrayed him!… This mingled hope and fear, these ideas of happiness, disturbed by dark premonitions, form the subject of the adagio. At the end one of the shepherds resumes his ‘ranz des vaches’; the other one no longer answers. Distant sound of thunder… solitude… silence…

That's about as an unencyclopedic as it gets, but its so tempting for editors to include stuff from here because it comes directly from the composer himself with instructions that "This programme should be distributed to the audience at concerts where this symphony is included, as it is indispensable for a complete understanding of the dramatic plan of the work."

And once one tries to "integrate" statements from Berlioz's notes with the usual technical details typically in a wikipedia article, then after several edits (and re-edits) it's going to become tricky trying to figure out what is a citeable fact, what is POV/OR and what is "Berlioz"'s own statements.

Anyone have any ideas? The Berlioz program notes could be included in their entirety in blockquotes I suppose. Perhaps split the notes by movement with the usual wikipedic technical details in between. Maybe even show/hide for the notes? DavidRF (talk) 05:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, let me just say that if we're going to have fluff and nonsense here, better that it should be Berlioz's, and not some editor trying to paraphrase him. I'd like to see more of the original source material here in some form or other. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 05:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with DavidRF with regard to including Berlioz's progarm notes for the symphony -- indeed, it seems almost ridiculous to be discussing the syphony without them! However, I'm not sure whether we would want to include them in block quotes or not. (I'm thinking that, since we would certainly want to elaborate on how Berlioz creates the musical representations of what's included in the notes, this might be more difficult if we simply include them in blocks.)

Also, +ILike2BeAnonymous, I'd just like to say that, while I agree with and respect your criticisms, you should be careful about making such casual references to "wiki-pinheads", since this appears to be a general insult and no doubt has the potential to make discussions on these pages more difficult than they need to be. --Todeswalzer|Talk 13:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the existence of these notes provides a unique challenge for editing. I'm still thinking blockquotes might be the way to go, though. The notes contain "plot" and many interpretive statements which normally wouldn't be allowed here if it wasn't written by the composer himself. I was thinking of starting off each movement's section with a blockquote of Berlioz's notes for that movement and then following up with a paragraph of the usual encyclopedic details which can refer to things mentioned in Berlioz's notes if need be. It might not be the most eloquent of solutions, but since wikipedia articles are in a perpetual state of editing and paraphrasing, it might make things easier if it was very clear which stuff is a direct quote from Berlioz. DavidRF (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

That (including Berlioz's own words as a preface or otherwise) makes eminent sense to me; I don't see what the problem would be with that. We're allowed to quote freely from him: why not do so, and get these descriptions straight from the horse's mouth, as it were? I'll leave the implementation details up to you. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 17:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. Well, that's the first pass. I could do more to make the blockquotes distinctive (italics?) I suppose. I'm not that great of a writer, I'm more of a fact-dumper. The point with my edit was that the Berlioz quotes can remain as colorful and descriptive as they are while the rest of the text can be editted and paraphrased and we can enforce much more stricter POV/OR rules. I'd like to get some additional citations for some of the points. The Schumann comments need citation. I'd like some of the additional descriptions of the fourth and fifth movements to stay -- the staccato cellos depicting the bouncing decapitated head is a really cool point -- but I need citations. These are common points that show up in symphony programs a lot. That's it for tonight. Let me know your feedback. DavidRF (talk) 03:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Request Idee Fixe Sound file

Is there any way we can get a sound file to accompany the score snippet? It is not the simplest melody to pick out of a score. Even a simple midi autogenerated from something like lilypond would be a great help. Thanks. DavidRF (talk) 16:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Reception

Why there isn't information about the first performance? I have heard that the reception was pretty bad, particulary because of a long text included in the program. Deafussy 19:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think the reception is notable enough. -- 213.6.6.112 (talk) 19:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)