To mark the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024, the BR-KLASSIK label is now making previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to available for the first time on CD. Hector Berlioz’s passionate Symphonie fantastique, the great French composer’s almost revolutionary symphonic masterpiece, was performed by Colin Davis with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich’s Philharmonie im Gasteig on 15 and 16 January 1987. Davis was acknowledged during his lifetime as a leading expert on Berlioz’s music, and his recordings are legendary. This live recording documents a performance that sets a new standard for the work.

In his Symphonie fantastique, subtitled “Episodes from the Life of an Artist”, the French composer and writer Hector Berlioz combines the structures of the musical symphony with the form of a classical five-part drama. He uses a leitmotif (an idée fixe) to tell the listener about the beloved woman of his dreams. The Symphonie fantastique thus paved the way for the Romantic symphonic poem, and the leitmotif method in Wagner’s music dramas.

“I am still unknown,” wrote Berlioz in June 1829 at the age of 25 – but he was certain that he could achieve resounding success with the idea of a major instrumental work. With his Symphonie fantastique, he created a new kind of programme music. Berlioz was inspired by the works of Goethe and the symphonic music of Beethoven – and also by his fascination with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he saw playing Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Odéon theatre in Paris on 11 September 1827. The idée fixe, the main theme, refers to the artist going through his life story in various inner states of mind.