Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique

Daniel Raiskin, conductor
Alexei Volodin, piano

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Symphonie fantastique

Reveries and Passions: Largo – Allegro agitato e appassionato assai
A Ball (Valse): Allegro non troppo
Scene in the Country: Adagio
March to the Scaffold: Allegretto non troppo
Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath: Larghetto – Allegro

Daniel Raiskin, conductor

Known for cultivating a broad repertoire and looking beyond the mainstream for his strikingly conceived programmes, Daniel Raiskin has been the music director for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra since the 2018/19 season.

Daniel grew up in St. Petersburg, the son of a prominent musicologist, where he attended the celebrated conservatory in his native city. He continued his studies in Amsterdam and Freiburg, first focusing on the viola but was later inspired to take up the conductor’s baton.  He studied with maestri such as Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Milan Horvat, Woldemar Nelson and Jorma Panula.

Along with the WSO, Daniel was appointed Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020/21, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016/17.

Some recent and upcoming guest engagements include the Warsaw and Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestras, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Russian National Orchestra, Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra (Hague Philharmonic, NL), Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.

During the 2021/22 season, Daniel took the Slovak Philharmonic and participated in a successful residency at the InClassica Festival in Dubai, where they shared the stage with Rudolf Buchbinder, Gil Shaham, Daniel Hope and Andreas Ottensamer. The Philharmonic also toured Germany and Austria this past spring (2022) under Daniel’s leadership.

Symphonie fantastique

Hector Berlioz
b. La Côte-Saint-André, Isère, France / December 11, 1803
d. Paris / March 8, 1869
Composed: 1830
First performance: December 5, 1830 (Paris), conducted by François Habeneck
Last WSO performance: 2016; Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor

Arch Romantic that he was, Berlioz was so taken with English actress Harriet Smithson when he saw her as Juliet and Ophelia in 1827 he wrote her frantic letters of love over the next three years despite never meeting her. The romance was entirely one-sided – she, fearing a potential ‘stalker’ in Berlioz, and he, wandering the countryside in despair of such unrequited love.

With Romantic nerve endings on fire, in 1830, Berlioz planned a new symphony with the subtitle “Episode from the Life of an Artist.” In it, the artist views his love through an opium-enhanced state, first in his dreams, then at a ball, in the countryside, at his execution, and finally, joining a witches’ Sabbath. Running through it all would be an idée fixe – a singular musical theme signifying Harriet that would morph from the innocent to the grotesque in parody at the end.

Berlioz did marry Harriet in 1833, but their happiness quickly dissolved, and they were estranged within a decade.

Symphonie fantastique is a tour de force in its vivid program content, bend-without-break melodies, dazzling orchestration and overall trailblazing from materials essentially derived from classical models. Its popularity among the most beloved symphonies in literature remains undiminished.

Berlioz supplied the following program as a guide to Symphonie fantastique:

Reveries-Passions: I take as my subject an artist blessed with sensibility and a lively imagination… who meets a woman who awakens in him for the first time his heart’s desire. He falls desperately in love with her. Curiously, the image of his beloved is linked inseparably with a musical idea representing her graceful and noble character. This idée fixe haunts him throughout the symphony.

A Ball: The artist attends a ball, but the gaiety and festive tumult fails to distract him. The idée fixe returns to torture him further.

Scene in the Country: Alone in the country on a summer evening, the artist hears two distant herdsmen calling each other in a `franz des vaches’ (an alphorn melody of the Swiss Alps). Their pastoral duet, the rustle of wind in the trees, and the hope that his beloved might be his all lull him into a reverie, but the idée fixe returns in his dreams. His heart palpitates, and he experiences dread premonitions. The sunsets, there is thunder in the distance, then solitude and silence.

March to the Scaffold: In despair, the artist attempts to commit suicide by overdosing on opium, but the drug, too weak to prove fatal, instead induces fearsome dreams. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, is condemned to death, and is being taken for execution. The idée fixe floats into his mind, only to be terminated by the fall of the blade.

Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath:  The artist at a Witches’ Sabbath hears the idée fixe again, but now transformed into a brazen and trivial dance. She has come to witness his burial! Later comes a monstrous parody of the Dies Irae (‘Day of Wrath,’ from the Latin Mass for the Dead). The dance of the witches is combined with the Dies Irae.

MUSIC

• Piano Concerto No. 1, Frédéric Chopin
• Symphony No. 5, “Reformation”, Felix Mendelssohn

LITERATURE

• The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith
• The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, Mary Shelley

HISTORY

• Belgium declares independence from Netherlands
• July Revolution in France overthrows King Charles X

ART

Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix

MUSICIANS

FIRST VIOLINS

Gwen Hoebig, Concertmaster
The Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté Memorial Chair, endowed by the Eckhardt-Gramatté Foundation
Karl Stobbe, Associate Concertmaster
Jeff Dydra
Mona Coarda
Tara Fensom
Hong Tian Jia
Mary Lawton
Sonia Lazar
Julie Savard
Jun Shao
Rebeca Weger**
Jeremy Buzash (guest)

SECOND VIOLINS

Chris Anstey, Principal
Elation Pauls, Assistant Principal
Karen Bauch
Kristina Bauch,
Elizabeth Dyer
Bokyung Hwang*
Rodica Jeffrey
Momoko Matsumura **
Susan McCallum
Takayo Noguchi
Jane Radomski
Trevor Kirczenow (guest)
Erica Sloos (guest)

VIOLAS

Elise Lavallée, Acting Principal
Dmytro Kreshchenskyi, Acting Assistant Principal**
Marie-Elyse Badeau
Laszlo Baroczi
Richard Bauch
Greg Hay
Michael Scholz
John Sellick (guest)

CELLOS

Yuri Hooker, Principal
Emma Quackenbush, Acting Assistant Principal
Grace An **
Arlene Dahl
Samuel Nadurak **
Alyssa Ramsay
Sean Taubner
Gabriella Oliveira (guest)

BASSES

Meredith Johnson, Principal
James McMillan
Daniel Perry
Eric Timperman
Emily Krajewski**
Tara Pivniak (guest)

FLUTES

Jan Kocman, Principal
Supported by Gordon & Audrey Fogg
Alex Conway

OBOES

Beverly Wang, Principal
Robin MacMillan
Aleh Remeau (guest)
Renz Adame (guest)

CLARINETS

Micah Heilbrunn, Principal
Graham Lord (guest)

BASSOONS

Kathryn Brooks, Principal *
Mark Kreshchenskyi, Acting Principal **
Elizabeth Mee **
Daniel Preun (guest)
Allen Harrington (guest)

HORNS

Patricia Evans, Principal
Ken MacDonald, Associate Principal
The Hilda Schelberger Memorial Chair
Aiden Kleer
Caroline Oberheu
Michiko Singh

TRUMPETS

Chris Fensom, Principal
Paul Jeffrey, Associate Principal
Isaac Pulford
The Patty Kirk Memorial Chair
James Langridge (guest)

TROMBONES

Steven Dyer, Principal
Keith Dyrda
Isabelle Lavoie**

TIMPANI

Andrew Nazer**
Brendan Thompson (guest)

TUBA

Justin Gruber, Principal
Justin Hickmott (guest)

PERCUSSION

Andrew Johnson, Principal
Ben Reimer (guest)
Victoria Sparks (guest)

HARP

Richard Turner, Principal
Endowed by W.H. & S.E. Loewen
Alanna Ellison (guest)

PERSONNEL MANAGER

Isaac Pulford

MUSIC LIBRARIAN

Michaela Kleer

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN

Aiden Kleer

* On Leave
** 1 year appointment