A FAUST OVERTURE
WAGNER (1813 - 1883)

Wagner is best known for his epic operas, but it was his desire to compose an epic symphony that resulted in tonight's work. In July 1837 he was engaged as music director of the theatre in Riga and stayed there for nearly two years. However, his work there ended in March 1839, somewhat sooner than he had hoped, and he was forced to make a hurried departure in order to escape his creditors. He travelled with his wife, Minna, via London to Boulogne where he met the composer Meyerbeer who promised Wagner an introduction to the Paris Opéra. They arrived in Paris on 17th September, but Wagner's hopes came to nothing. He was forced to make a living by making instrumental arrangements of popular operatic pieces of the day and writing articles. It was still not enough to spare him the indignity of a spell in a debtor's prison.

Wagner's time in Paris was not a complete disaster as his enthusiasm to compose was reawakened by a performance of the first three movements of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Wagner also attended the premiere of Berlioz's "Roméo et Juliette" on 24th November. This proved to be the inspiration behind an idea to compose an epic symphony based on the legend of Faust. However, he never got beyond a single movement, composed in 1840, depicting Faust himself. He reorchestrated the work in 1843-4 and the revised work was first performed in Dresden on the 22nd July 1844. Wagner returned to the work in 1855 and revised it again after which it appeared under the title by which we know it today, "A Faust Overture". Wagner described the overture by quoting from Goethe's poem : "So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest."

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Leider eines fahrenden gesellen
(Songs of a Wayfarer) 

MAHLER (1860 - 1911)
(Tenor soloist - Thomas Guthrie)

Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht
Ging heut' morgen übers Feld
Ich hab' ein glühend Messer
Die zwei blauen Augen

In 1883, while working as music director at Kassel, Mahler fell in love with Johanna Richter, one of the singers at the Opera. The relationship was not a success and she eventually rejected him. Mahler's response was to focus his mind elsewhere - writing and composing. However, the poems he wrote and subsequently set to music told a tale of unrequited love, all too close to home. As he wrote to his friend Friedrich Löhr : "… the paltry words cannot even convey a small part of my love. The songs are planned as a whole in such a way that it is as if a fated travelling journeyman now sets out into the world and wanders alone." The song cycle was completed in 1884 and first performed on 16th March 1896 in Berlin. It is now widely recognised as his first masterpiece. Mahler was to use some of the melodies again in his first symphony, most notably the second song around which the symphony's opening movement is based, and the last song which features in the slow movement.

The first song, "When my beloved marries", describes the Wayfarer's feelings when he sees his beloved marry someone else. In the second, "As I walked across the field this morning", his friend attempts to take his mind off things by describing the beauties of nature. In the third, "I have a glowing knife", he is again tormented by memories of his rejection while in the fourth, "Her two blue eyes", he remembers the beauty of his beloved's eyes and realises that he will never get over losing her.

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Symphony Fantastique
BERLIOZ (1803 - 1869)

Daydreams - Passions
A Ball
Scene in the Fields
March to the Scaffold
Sabbath Night's Dream

Hector Berlioz was the son of a provincial doctor. He showed an interest in music, learning the flute and guitar, but was destined for a medical career. He went to Paris in 1821 to go to medical school, but also took private music lessons. He started composing and eventually, in 1826, entered the Paris Conservatoire where he studied with Reicha and LaSueur. The following year saw an event which changed his life.

He went to the Odéon Theatre in Paris to see a performance of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" by a visiting English theatrical company. The role of Ophelia was played by a young Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, and Berlioz fell passionately in love with her. However, his repeated advances were rebuffed time and again. Musically too, Berlioz was having a hard time. He tried to win the Prix de Rome in order to establish himself on the Parisian musical scene, but was severely hampered by the ultra-conservatism of the members of the judging panel who were unlikely to support the revolutionary Berlioz.
Nevertheless, in 1830 he won the coveted prize at the fourth attempt. His response was to compose his Symphonie Fantastique (subtitled "Episodes in an artist's life"), an almost autobiographical work inspired by his unrequited love for Harriet. It was premiered in Paris on 5th December 1830. Two years later, Berlioz and Harriet Smithson met at a performance of the Symphonie and they married 10 months later. Unfortunately, the marriage failed and the couple parted in 1841. When Harriet died in 1854, Liszt (who had written a piano transcription of the Symphonie Fantastique) wrote to Berlioz "She inspired you, you sang of her, her task was done".

The Symphonie Fantastique remains one of the most remarkable compositions of the Romantic era. It was the first major orchestral work to follow a programme (Berlioz provided a detailed programme for the Symphonie Fantastique's first performance) and as such was the forerunner of the programme-symphonies and symphonic poems of the likes of Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Strauss. It also introduced the idea of the "idée fixe" - a motto theme which appears in various guises representing something or someone (Harriet Smithson in the case of the Symphonie Fantastique). This idea was taken up by Wagner with his "leitmotiv". The five-movement structure was also ahead of its time.

In the first movement the artist sees his ideal woman and falls in love with her. However, her vision only appears in his mind when accompanied by a musical idea - the "idée fixe" first heard in the violins and flutes. His mood changes from dreamy melancholy through periods of pure delight to a state of delirious passion with its accompanying fits of fury and jealousy. He finally finds comfort through religion. In the second movement, wherever the artist goes, the vision of his beloved appears bringing torment to him. The third movement sees him in the country listening to shepherds playing a pastoral melody. This, combined with the tranquillity of the countryside, brings an unaccustomed feeling of peace. He hopes soon to be with his beloved, but then his happiness turns to fear that she will deceive him. In the fourth movement the artist, convinced that his love will never be returned, tries to kill himself with opium. It does not kill him but takes him into a ghastly nightmare with terrifying visions. He dreams that he has killed the woman he loves and has been condemned to death. He is brought to the guillotine and as his last thoughts turn to his beloved the "idée fixe" returns only to be interrupted as the blade falls. In the final movement, the artist's opium-induced nightmare continues as he sees himself at a witches' sabbath with all kinds of spirits and monsters gathered for his funeral. The "idée fixe" returns again but it is hardly recognisable. Gone is the feeling of beauty and refinement - instead it is hideous and grotesque. She has come to the sabbath! The terrifying nightmare ends as a macabre version of the Dies Irae leads into a wild fugue which brings the various musical ideas together in a headlong charge towards oblivion.

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