Debussy: Three Nocturnes –⁠ Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Live)

Art imitates life in Symphonie Fantastique, the mainstay of this Apple Music Classical exclusive album. Berlioz, an impetuous twentysomething, channels his obsessive love for an actress and infatuation with the pioneering works of Beethoven into music of incendiary passions and breathtaking brilliance. Apparently fuelled by regular intakes of opium while composing the piece, he leads the listener into the dreamworld of an artist apparently hell-bent on self-destruction. Each of its five movements, linked by a shape-shifting tune emblematic of the woman he loves, illustrates a chapter in the artist’s life. Symphonie Fantastique takes in the fizzing energy of a ball and includes a drug-induced hallucination of the artist being marched to the scaffold. Its ends with a blood-curdling witches’ sabbath, crowned by an ancient melody associated with the Day of Judgement. By way of an overture, however, are impressions of a gentler but no less vivid kind. In his Three Nocturnes, Debussy evokes the atmosphere of fleeting clouds at sunset, nocturnal revellers in the Bois de Boulogne and, helped by a wordless women’s chorus, the alluring sound of sirens singing across a moonlit seascape. Veteran Italian conductor Riccardo Muti’s legendary ear for orchestral colour is ideally matched to the works of Berlioz and Debussy. Vienna Philharmonic double-bassist and general manager Michael Bladerer says the orchestra jumped at the chance to perform French repertoire with him. “The Vienna Philharmonic is famous for German and Austrian repertoire,” observes Michael. “But we also love to play French music. Why? Because it’s extremely colourful. Each of the Three Nocturnes, for example, is very different in character and sound. And the ladies of Vienna’s Singverein give an additional wonderful colour to this programme.” Michael Bladerer shares his insights on this Vienna Philharmonic concert in the final track of this album.