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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

The love story that created the Symphonie Fantastique.


The love story that created the Symphonie Fantastique.


Harriet Constance (Smithson) was a Shakespearean actress, famous in her day who was also the first wife and muse of Hector Berlioz. She was born the daughter of actors in 1800, at Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland. Extremely beautiful and graceful, by 1827 she was one of the best known and highly favored classical actors in the world.
At the height of her career, she became the figurehead for the French Romantic movement. She was said to have been the inspiration for Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, the first great romantic symphony, after Berlioz, who was born near the French Alps, saw her on stage in 1827 and became infatuated with her.
According to Berlioz, who was 23 at the time, the moment he saw Smithson, he fell in love with her and drowned her in letters and gifts despite never having met her. He even took and an apartment near her home so he could see her leave and return home and watch her, through windows, until she went to sleep. It was insane but standard behavior for him. As a teen, Berlioz suffered from isolation and bouts of uncontrollable mood swings and dramatic fantasies of love and loss.
Berlioz wrote to a friend, “You don’t know what love is, whatever you may say. For you, it’s not that rage, that fury, that delirium which takes possession of all one’s faculties, which renders one capable of anything.”
He formed the idea of a “fantastic symphony” portraying an episode in the life of an artist who is constantly haunted by the vision of the perfect, unattainable woman. The symphony would have the "idée fixe" (“fixed idea”), a recurring theme of rising longing and falling despair – a depiction of gripping obsession and the epitome of Romanticism.


For her part, Smithson simply ignored the conductor. However, in 1832 a friend invited her to a performance of Lélio, a sequel to Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Realizing the symphony was about her, she sent Berlioz a message congratulating him. Berlioz wrote back and received permission to meet her.


The two became instant lovers despite the opposition of both families and friends. (And despite neither speaking the other’s language) One story has it that upon meeting Smithson, Berlioz asked her to marry him. She said no. He took out a vial of opium from his pocket and swallowed a lethal dose.  She became hysterical and agreed to marry him. Berlioz produced the antidote from another pocket and swallowed that. They married at the British Embassy in Paris on October 3, 1833.  Their only child was born a year later.
But the conductor's obsession faded quickly. Smithson became possessive, resentful and jealous of Berlioz as his musical success continued, causing Berlioz to avoid her at first and then to move out. He eventually fell into the waiting arms of  Marie Recio, a singer at the Paris Opera, who became Berlioz’s second wife. Smithson and Berlioz divorced seven years after they married.  She died, alone, in March 1854. Berlioz died in Paris in 1869 at age 65.    Symphonie Fantastique lives on.
Ricio 

The finished product of Berlioz obsession ….Symphonie Fantastique…. is cast in five movements: the first a dream, the second a ball where the artist is haunted by the sight of his beloved. After a country scene, the fourth movement slips into a nightmare: “Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium,” explained Berlioz. “The dose of narcotic plunges him into a heavy sleep. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution.”


Then the work descends into the thrillingly horrific Dream Of A Witches’ Sabbath and  artist’s perfect beloved transforms into a whore and is cast into Hell (He may have added this to the work based on the rumor that Smithson had an ongoing affair  her manager, who was married) The rumor was….in fact, it still persists….that Berlioz wrote the work while high as a kite on opium.


Part One describes a young man who sees and immediately falls in love with the woman of his dreams. To represent Harriet, Berlioz had a special idea; he wrote a musical theme which he called his idée fixe, which appears in the first movement and then reemerges throughout the Symphonie fantastique in different forms and played on different instruments.

Part Two the artist finds himself in a variety of locations and situations, but everywhere he goes his beloved’s image appears before him and disturbs his peace of mind.

Part Three, he finds himself one evening in the country and hopes that his loneliness will soon be over.

Part Four shows the artist - convinced that his love is unappreciated – poisoning himself. The dose of opium plunges him into a sleep accompanied by the most horrible visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned and led to the scaffold, and that he is witnessing his own execution.

In the fifth and final part, he sees himself at a witches' sabbath, where a terrifying troop of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind, gather for his funeral. In the midst of it all, his beloved appears but in a grotesque form.