Right on time for the 200th birthday of Hector Berlioz,
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, whose Bruckner recordings
received the Cannes Classical Awards, presents his
exciting interpretation of Berlioz.
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra„Stanislaw Skrowaczewski entlockt
den Saarländern beachtliche Ensemblequalitäten
– im scharf konturierten Tutti
wie im subtilen Farbenspiel der einzelnen
Klanggruppen.“
“Stanislaw Skrowaczewski elicits
remarkable ensemble qualities from the
Saarbrücken Radio Symphony – both in
the sharply drawn tutti and the subtle
colours of the single instrumental
groups.“
Rondo, June 2000
„Der Dirigent (Skrowaczewski) läßt die
Musik atmen und bleibt dabei intensiv
in der Durchgestaltung der Haupt- und
Nebenstimmen.“
“The conductor (Skrowaczewski) lets
the music breathe and still maintains a
remarkable intensity in structuring the
principal and secondary parts.”
FONO FORUM, August 1996 Hector Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) began writing
little pieces of chamber music at an early
age. However, his father, a physician, did not
wish for him to become a musician and,
against his will, sent him to study medicine in
Paris in 1821. Already after his first year of
study had passed, Hector abandoned this
education and began studying music at the
Paris Conservatoire. His family disowned him
because of this. He applied four times for the
respected Prix de Rome which was combined
with a scholarship residence in the Eternal
City, but only managed to win it only in 1830. In
the same year, his Symphonie fantastique was
first performed in Paris. During these years,
Berlioz had discovered Weber and Beethoven
for himself and read Goethe and Shakespeare.
His admiration for the master from Bonn was
so great that he doubted whether he would be
able to create something new after this great
symphony writer’s work. Eventually, he resorted
to conveying poems, thoughts and events
by musical means, in short – to write programme
music – and to use all imaginable
means of instrumentation for this end. The
Symphonie fantastique was to become his
most important “programme symphony” in
which he describes an event from his own life,
a love affair that ended in disappointment, an
“episode in the life of an artist”. His great
model Beethoven is recognisable in individual
compositional techniques, but the orchestra
is hugely extended. “Daydreams, Passions”
are the topic of the first movement while a
floating waltz in the second conveys a ball
during which a transfigured image of the
loved one is created. In the third movement,
the scenery is moved to the countryside; its
model is the “scene by the brook” from
Beethoven’s Sinfonia pastorale: the lover is
thinking of his beauty. However, disillusionment
follows close behind in the “March to
the Scaffold” (fourth movement). The lover
knows that he is spurned. He falls asleep,
dreaming that he has murdered his love and
will be executed for it. A funeral march
accompanies these events. “A Witches’ Sabbath”
is the topic of the fifth movement: the
peal of bells, the dies irae and a loud, crashing
finale complete the work.
Romeo et Juliette, a dramatic symphony
from 1839, is composed of pure instrumental
parts and song pieces. However, in this form,
the work was not able to hold its ground in the
concert repertories. Berlioz was oriented on
Shakespeare’s stage play of the same name,
with the “Festivities at the Capulets’” and an
adagio movement titled Love Scene: low
strings evoking the image of a warm summer’s
night, dim moonlight expressed by the violins,
night-time calls of the birds in the clarinet and
the English horn – an atmospherically dense
image that is stirred by Romeo’s passionate
trembling (allegro agitato) and then falls back
into its original transfiguration. Romeo et
Juliette owes its creation to the generosity of
Niccolò Paganini, who regarded Berlioz as
Beethoven’s legitimate heir and therefore
gave him 20,000 Francs so that Berlioz did not
have to concern himself with commissioned
work and the writing of articles out of necessity
to support himself.
Berlioz’ use of the orchestra had an important
influence on Wagner, Strauss, Mahler,
Debussy and Ravel. His lessons on instrumentation
were translated into German, amongst
other languages, and were admired on all
sides. His compositional work, on the other
hand, is only slowly returning into the repertories.
Daniel Brandenburg