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.