Symphony Fantastique Commentary-March To The Scaffold

Symphony Fantastique commentary- March to the Scaffold.

This movement comes at the point in the piece where thee hero (most likely Berlioz) believes that although he has fallen in love with a captivatingly beautiful woman, he is convinced that it is an unrequited love. As a reaction to this, the hero poisons himself with opium to commit suicide. However this does not ultimately kill him- instead he is knocked out cold and and is inflicted with vivid visions. In these visions he has a dream that he has killed the woman he has fallen in love with and has been sentenced to death, and is being ‘marched’ to the execution scaffold to witness his own demise. Some critics argue that in the second half of the movement, one can hear the Berlioz in the music ‘crying out for forgiveness’ for the murder he thinks he has committed (this is why Bernstein referred to it as the ‘first true psychedelic symphony”.) at the end of the movement the opening 4 bars of the idee fixe reappear from the previous movement- perhaps a final thought of

Trolhaugen is the name of Grieg’s estate, hence the title of the piece. Originally scored for solo piano, the piece was re orchestrated later in its life and has become the most famous of all Grieg’s Lyric pieces.

The music is rather quaint, and has a lovely catchy tune that sits over a light string accompaniment, with a rustic like feel. Even in the orchestral version, one can here that it was clearly written at a piano, as all the idiomatic writing sits nicely into two hands or sections. a more interesting note is a use of partial whole tone scales to provide harmonic colour, starting on Db and working upwards. The piece invokes a clear sense of joy and love that the composer feels for his wife, and the music does its job eloquently and