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00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:05,300
'Europe at the beginning
of the 19th century,

2
00:00:05,300 --> 00:00:07,940
'a continent at war with itself.'

3
00:00:07,940 --> 00:00:10,460
ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS

4
00:00:22,260 --> 00:00:24,260
The symphony is revolutionised,

5
00:00:24,260 --> 00:00:27,540
changed beyond all recognition
in the space of just 30 years

6
00:00:27,540 --> 00:00:31,620
by two titanic men,
one German and one French.

7
00:00:31,620 --> 00:00:34,380
The music and ideas
of Beethoven and Berlioz

8
00:00:34,380 --> 00:00:38,460
were profoundly influenced by the
French Revolution and its aftermath.

9
00:00:38,460 --> 00:00:42,940
Their symphonies would offer
audiences a new understanding
of the world

10
00:00:42,940 --> 00:00:45,140
in a time of great change
and anxiety.

11
00:00:57,340 --> 00:01:00,180
Beethoven was a revolutionary
and idealist,

12
00:01:00,180 --> 00:01:03,060
Berlioz an iconoclast and visionary

13
00:01:03,060 --> 00:01:08,260
and both men had personalities
almost too big for the world
that they inhabited.

14
00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:15,580
'Ludwig van Beethoven, the German
who struggled with his deafness,

15
00:01:15,580 --> 00:01:19,340
'but whose nine symphonies are one
the wonders of human achievement.'

16
00:01:22,460 --> 00:01:25,980
Beethoven was after something epic.

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00:01:25,980 --> 00:01:30,860
The idea that an orchestra could
portray a journey from darkness

18
00:01:30,860 --> 00:01:34,860
into the blaze of what
one might call victory.

19
00:01:34,860 --> 00:01:36,740
Now this was completely original.

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00:01:36,740 --> 00:01:39,260
Nobody had dared to do
something as modern as this.

21
00:01:44,660 --> 00:01:47,660
'Hector Berlioz, the French composer
who came after him,

22
00:01:47,660 --> 00:01:52,740
'driven by obsession to give
the symphony his own wild
and romantic voice.'

23
00:01:53,780 --> 00:01:56,260
Berlioz was a bit of a maverick.

24
00:01:56,260 --> 00:01:58,940
It's quite extraordinary
the use of the orchestra.

25
00:01:58,940 --> 00:02:01,780
He seems to think of it
as an instrument in itself, I think,

26
00:02:01,780 --> 00:02:04,300
as a virtuoso instrument.

27
00:02:10,660 --> 00:02:15,300
'We'll see how composers
became artists determined
to control their own destinies,

28
00:02:15,300 --> 00:02:18,580
'how they gave orchestral music,
without words, great stories to tell

29
00:02:18,580 --> 00:02:22,460
'and how composers as different
as Liszt and Schubert were inspired

30
00:02:22,460 --> 00:02:25,700
'to take this symphony to undreamt-
of places after Beethoven's death.'

31
00:02:42,180 --> 00:02:45,780
'Our story starts in the imperial
Austrian city of Vienna

32
00:02:45,780 --> 00:02:51,060
'where 200 years ago,
an extraordinary concert
would change the course of music.'

33
00:03:00,780 --> 00:03:05,100
It was here at the Theater an der
Wien just before Christmas 1808

34
00:03:05,100 --> 00:03:06,660
that the curtain was raised.

35
00:03:10,580 --> 00:03:15,420
'This was the 38-year-old
Ludwig van Beethoven's
declaration of his status

36
00:03:15,420 --> 00:03:18,700
'as an independent artist
in control of his own destiny.

37
00:03:18,700 --> 00:03:23,180
'He was the composer, conductor,
piano soloist and concert promoter

38
00:03:23,180 --> 00:03:25,380
'and this performance
would last four hours.'

39
00:03:32,460 --> 00:03:35,980
It was an evening that featured
not just one new symphony but two,

40
00:03:35,980 --> 00:03:40,060
each as different from the other
as they were from any music
that had preceded them.

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00:03:40,060 --> 00:03:43,540
It was during this mammoth
concert - it really does
take your breath away -

42
00:03:43,540 --> 00:03:47,580
there were half a dozen other
pieces by Beethoven on the
programme, old and new -

43
00:03:47,580 --> 00:03:51,780
that the Fifth and Sixth Symphony
were heard for the first time.

44
00:03:51,780 --> 00:03:53,820
OPENING NOTES TO FIFTH SYMPHONY

45
00:03:59,340 --> 00:04:03,020
'The most famous four-note
sequence in music,

46
00:04:03,020 --> 00:04:06,140
'instantly recognisable to us today
as Beethoven's Fifth

47
00:04:06,140 --> 00:04:07,820
'and full of associations.'

48
00:04:11,820 --> 00:04:15,780
'Fate knocking at the door,
"V" for victory.

49
00:04:15,780 --> 00:04:19,500
'But how must it have sounded
to that original audience?'

50
00:04:23,260 --> 00:04:25,700
'Beethoven presented
it as pure music.

51
00:04:27,180 --> 00:04:30,260
'No clue to its significance
or meaning.'

52
00:04:33,660 --> 00:04:37,860
Well, Beethoven, as a personality,
was so tricky

53
00:04:37,860 --> 00:04:40,180
and so uncouth in so many ways

54
00:04:40,180 --> 00:04:42,620
and had such a difficult,
troubled childhood,

55
00:04:42,620 --> 00:04:46,460
that the adult that gave us
some of these pieces was a man

56
00:04:46,460 --> 00:04:50,100
so often at odds
with the world around him.

57
00:04:52,540 --> 00:04:54,980
'Born in poverty
in the German town of Bonn,

58
00:04:54,980 --> 00:04:58,300
'he was bullied as a child
by his alcoholic father

59
00:04:58,300 --> 00:05:00,700
'and in his 20s realised
he was going deaf,

60
00:05:00,700 --> 00:05:03,660
'surely the cruellest
of tragedies for a musician.'

61
00:05:05,340 --> 00:05:08,820
'But Beethoven was a man with
a will of iron

62
00:05:08,820 --> 00:05:13,420
'and, in the Fifth, he harnesses
the power of the orchestra
to an insistent propulsive rhythm

63
00:05:13,420 --> 00:05:17,940
'forcing the symphony to articulate
the profoundest personal drama.'

64
00:05:20,380 --> 00:05:26,140
The story of a soul struggling
against implacable fate and
emerging incandescently victorious.

65
00:05:28,500 --> 00:05:32,700
One of the great contrasts
available to a composer

66
00:05:32,700 --> 00:05:35,620
are the contrasts
of darkness and lightness.

67
00:05:36,980 --> 00:05:41,580
And in his Fifth Symphony,
builds up from hesitant darkness

68
00:05:41,580 --> 00:05:47,020
into the radiant blaze of optimism,
confidence, whatever.

69
00:05:47,020 --> 00:05:49,820
Now he does this through
the simplest of means.

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00:05:49,820 --> 00:05:55,940
At the end of the third movement,
which is the rather
shadowy, dark scherzo,

71
00:05:55,940 --> 00:06:00,980
his plan is to burst us
into the light without stopping.

72
00:06:00,980 --> 00:06:04,860
Now he does this by making the
orchestra play as quietly as it can,

73
00:06:04,860 --> 00:06:07,980
all the strings just
plucking very, very quietly.

74
00:06:19,500 --> 00:06:23,580
Then comes the heartbeat of the
drum, very, very quiet and distant

75
00:06:23,580 --> 00:06:28,780
and the strings just moving
up and down, uncertain about
which way they're going to go.

76
00:06:33,500 --> 00:06:37,580
And then suddenly, very quickly,
the whole orchestra comes in

77
00:06:37,580 --> 00:06:41,500
and, without stopping,
we burst into the final movement.

78
00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:43,660
This is in the major key.

79
00:06:43,660 --> 00:06:46,900
Lights full on after lights
hardly on at all.

80
00:06:59,820 --> 00:07:02,940
'The symphony is a masterpiece
of storytelling without words.

81
00:07:02,940 --> 00:07:05,820
When the French Revolution erupted,
Beethoven was a teenager,

82
00:07:05,820 --> 00:07:09,300
'struggling to support his family
after the death of their mother

83
00:07:09,300 --> 00:07:13,340
'and the concept of individual
liberty became a lifelong issue.

84
00:07:13,340 --> 00:07:17,740
'We, the listeners, are compelled
to share his battle against fate.'

85
00:07:21,220 --> 00:07:25,860
Although Beethoven wanted
to write something that was
comprehensible at first hearing,

86
00:07:25,860 --> 00:07:28,060
he wasn't writing
simply to give pleasure.

87
00:07:28,060 --> 00:07:31,700
He wanted it to be a potentially
life-changing experience,

88
00:07:31,700 --> 00:07:36,460
music that would resonate
in the mind long after
the last note had sounded.

89
00:07:44,220 --> 00:07:48,740
'The other symphony couldn't
have been more different
from the dramatic Fifth,

90
00:07:48,740 --> 00:07:52,860
'demonstrating the breadth of
Beethoven's extraordinary vision
of what the symphony could be.

91
00:08:02,500 --> 00:08:06,140
'However, making a living
as an independent
professional composer

92
00:08:06,140 --> 00:08:11,620
'was something very new and his
early concerts were under-rehearsed,
badly organised financial disasters.

93
00:08:11,620 --> 00:08:15,780
'To escape his troubles,
he loved to walk in the country

94
00:08:15,780 --> 00:08:21,980
'and in the Sixth symphony we join
him on one of his walks through
his beloved Austrian countryside.

95
00:08:21,980 --> 00:08:25,380
'A friend said nature
was almost meat and drink to him.

96
00:08:25,380 --> 00:08:28,260
'He seemed positively
to exist upon it.'

97
00:08:42,700 --> 00:08:44,860
'But this was more than recreation.

98
00:08:44,860 --> 00:08:49,460
'To walk in the country
was a kind of political act.

99
00:08:49,460 --> 00:08:52,660
'Beethoven was a romantic
in the strictest sense.

100
00:08:52,660 --> 00:08:56,460
'As you walked away from urban
society, you became a natural being,

101
00:08:56,460 --> 00:08:59,740
'no longer measured in terms
of wealth or social status,

102
00:08:59,740 --> 00:09:04,220
'but able to find your place as part
of the natural order of things.'

103
00:09:08,100 --> 00:09:11,940
It's actually opening spaces
for people's imagination

104
00:09:11,940 --> 00:09:13,980
rather than telling them
what to think.

105
00:09:13,980 --> 00:09:19,020
And this creates a wonderful
myth about the transformation,

106
00:09:19,020 --> 00:09:23,660
almost the redemption of the artist
in the urban situation

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00:09:23,660 --> 00:09:25,460
by going into the countryside

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00:09:25,460 --> 00:09:29,620
that became a very influential model
for composers later.

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00:09:29,620 --> 00:09:34,700
It's not really about
the countryside, it's really about

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00:09:34,700 --> 00:09:39,940
someone in the city thinking
about the countryside
and creating a myth about it.

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00:10:01,700 --> 00:10:04,220
This symphony
has five distinct movements

112
00:10:04,220 --> 00:10:06,180
rather than the standard four

113
00:10:06,180 --> 00:10:09,020
and for the first and only time
in a Beethoven symphony

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each one had a title that was
printed in the programme.

115
00:10:12,060 --> 00:10:14,100
This is programmatic music.

116
00:10:14,100 --> 00:10:17,140
The first movement is The Awakening
Of Cheerful Feelings

117
00:10:17,140 --> 00:10:19,020
Upon Arrival In The Country

118
00:10:19,020 --> 00:10:21,540
and he called the second
Scene By A Brook.

119
00:10:26,860 --> 00:10:30,500
The programme headings were
uncharacteristic for Beethoven,

120
00:10:30,500 --> 00:10:33,580
but they looked forward to
the literary symphonies to come.

121
00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:44,580
The French composer Hector Berlioz
who, as we shall see later,

122
00:10:44,580 --> 00:10:47,420
took up the idea of programmatic
music with grand elan,

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00:10:47,420 --> 00:10:51,660
wrote of this second movement
Scene By A Brook,

124
00:10:51,660 --> 00:10:54,300
"I think here the composer
actually created the music

125
00:10:54,300 --> 00:10:57,900
"whilst lying on his back
on a grassy bank.

126
00:10:57,900 --> 00:11:02,020
"His eyes turn towards heaven,
he's observing and listening,

127
00:11:02,020 --> 00:11:04,900
"enthralled by the countless
reflections of sound and light

128
00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:06,700
"as the current of the brook

129
00:11:06,700 --> 00:11:10,220
"sends ripples across
the surface of the water."

130
00:11:10,220 --> 00:11:12,780
This is the actual brook.

131
00:11:14,100 --> 00:11:16,020
Not quite so pastoral nowadays.

132
00:11:25,740 --> 00:11:28,860
The symphony is a sequence
of encounters with nature,

133
00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:31,820
scene painting which stimulates
thoughts and feelings

134
00:11:31,820 --> 00:11:33,660
and Beethoven rarely allowed himself

135
00:11:33,660 --> 00:11:36,180
to be so light and charming
or so literal.

136
00:11:36,180 --> 00:11:40,860
This movement ends with a faithful
music reproduction of birdsong.

137
00:11:42,500 --> 00:11:45,700
And what's so funny about it
is the birds that he chose.

138
00:11:45,700 --> 00:11:48,540
It says in the score here,
the nightingale...

139
00:11:48,540 --> 00:11:50,180
TRILLING NOTES ON PIANO

140
00:11:50,180 --> 00:11:51,500
And then you hear the quail!

141
00:11:51,500 --> 00:11:53,220
STACCATO NOTE ON PIANO

142
00:11:53,220 --> 00:11:56,260
I don't know when you last heard
a quail... I haven't heard many.

143
00:11:56,260 --> 00:11:58,140
Normally...
Well, not consciously.

144
00:11:58,140 --> 00:12:00,980
And then there's a cuckoo
isn't there? A famous cuckoo.

145
00:12:00,980 --> 00:12:03,340
IMITATES CUCKOO ON PIANO
Yeah.

146
00:12:03,340 --> 00:12:06,540
If you play the... Shall I do
the nightingale? The Nachtigall.

147
00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:17,580
THEY BUILD
A BIRDSONG CHORUS TOGETHER

148
00:12:25,900 --> 00:12:27,300
'We struggled to play it,

149
00:12:27,300 --> 00:12:32,420
'but it's a work of great freshness,
full of humour,'

150
00:12:32,420 --> 00:12:34,900
of dancing exhilaration,

151
00:12:34,900 --> 00:12:36,340
of great beauty

152
00:12:36,340 --> 00:12:38,140
and a masterpiece of form.

153
00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:40,340
WOODWIND BUILD
THE BIRDSONG CHORUS

154
00:12:42,180 --> 00:12:44,460
The songs of the nightingale,
quail and cuckoo

155
00:12:44,460 --> 00:12:46,060
gain an extra poignancy

156
00:12:46,060 --> 00:12:48,860
if you bear in mind
the composer's growing deafness.

157
00:13:10,420 --> 00:13:12,820
In its own way,
the Pastoral is a work

158
00:13:12,820 --> 00:13:14,460
just as visionary as the Fifth,

159
00:13:14,460 --> 00:13:18,140
offering a utopian vision
of peace, harmony and fulfilment

160
00:13:18,140 --> 00:13:21,380
against the contemporary backdrop
of war-torn Europe.

161
00:13:33,660 --> 00:13:37,220
When Beethoven was a young man
in the late 1780s and early 1790s,

162
00:13:37,220 --> 00:13:39,620
he was fascinated
by what was happening

163
00:13:39,620 --> 00:13:41,420
across the border in France.

164
00:13:41,420 --> 00:13:43,540
He was a member
of republican circles

165
00:13:43,540 --> 00:13:46,540
and for him the notion
of being an independent composer

166
00:13:46,540 --> 00:13:49,820
was linked to ideas of liberty
and the rights of man.

167
00:13:49,820 --> 00:13:52,460
Once when someone asked him
whether the "Van"

168
00:13:52,460 --> 00:13:56,100
in his name, Ludwig Van Beethoven,
denoted aristocratic origins

169
00:13:56,100 --> 00:14:00,580
he snapped back "I am not
a landowner, I'm a brain owner."

170
00:14:10,940 --> 00:14:13,500
After the premiere
of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies,

171
00:14:13,500 --> 00:14:17,260
Napoleon invades Austria
and occupies Vienna.

172
00:14:17,260 --> 00:14:20,100
Beethoven hides in his brother's
cellar, protecting his ears

173
00:14:20,100 --> 00:14:24,060
from the sound of French cannon
by burying his head in pillows.

174
00:14:24,060 --> 00:14:28,220
His former teacher, the 77-year-old
Joseph Haydn, is luckier.

175
00:14:28,220 --> 00:14:31,260
Such is Napoleon's respect
for the father of the symphony

176
00:14:31,260 --> 00:14:33,940
that he orders guards
to protect him.

177
00:14:33,940 --> 00:14:38,260
Haydn, a firm anti-republican,
makes a point of taking up his hymn,

178
00:14:38,260 --> 00:14:40,180
Gott Erhalte Franz Den Kaiser,

179
00:14:40,180 --> 00:14:43,060
otherwise known as the tune
of Deutschland Uber Alles,

180
00:14:43,060 --> 00:14:46,500
and playing it loudly
in protest every morning.

181
00:14:46,500 --> 00:14:50,620
Sadly, within weeks of the French
invasion, Haydn is gone,

182
00:14:50,620 --> 00:14:52,940
dying peacefully in his sleep.

183
00:14:57,460 --> 00:15:01,060
Now Beethoven became Vienna's
indisputable musical hero.

184
00:15:02,900 --> 00:15:05,620
The premiere
of his Seventh Symphony in 1813

185
00:15:05,620 --> 00:15:10,460
coincided with Napoleon's defeat and
was hailed as a victory symphony.

186
00:15:14,540 --> 00:15:17,740
The following year,
his Eighth won new admirers

187
00:15:17,740 --> 00:15:19,140
with its wit and humour.

188
00:15:19,140 --> 00:15:23,300
Now his concerts
had become major musical events.

189
00:15:25,780 --> 00:15:27,940
The audiences of Vienna

190
00:15:27,940 --> 00:15:31,500
were the most musically
sophisticated in Europe.

191
00:15:31,500 --> 00:15:33,820
They knew what they had lost
with Haydn and Mozart

192
00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:37,060
and when another one
came along they went,

193
00:15:37,060 --> 00:15:39,700
"Blimey,
but have you heard him?"

194
00:15:39,700 --> 00:15:43,580
And people would say "Beethoven's
giving a concert. Let's go,

195
00:15:43,580 --> 00:15:46,500
"you never quite know
what's going to happen."

196
00:15:48,140 --> 00:15:51,620
Finally, in 1824, at the most
prestigious venue in Vienna,

197
00:15:51,620 --> 00:15:53,260
the Karntnertor Theatre,

198
00:15:53,260 --> 00:15:55,340
Viennese audiences would hear

199
00:15:55,340 --> 00:15:58,260
his final and most
groundbreaking symphony yet.

200
00:16:02,860 --> 00:16:05,500
The Karntnertor Theatre
is long gone,

201
00:16:05,500 --> 00:16:07,540
but on its site stands
one of Vienna's great

202
00:16:07,540 --> 00:16:10,260
and most glorious institutions,
The Hotel Sacher,

203
00:16:10,260 --> 00:16:14,820
home to one of the world's most
famous cakes, the Sacher torte.

204
00:16:16,580 --> 00:16:18,420
Right from the opening notes

205
00:16:18,420 --> 00:16:20,700
where the orchestra
seem to be suspended

206
00:16:20,700 --> 00:16:23,140
in the cosmic vastness of space,

207
00:16:23,140 --> 00:16:25,060
it was clear that Beethoven's Ninth

208
00:16:25,060 --> 00:16:27,140
was going to be
another leap forward.

209
00:16:56,900 --> 00:16:59,620
I've been trying to think
how to compare the Ninth Symphony

210
00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:00,740
with a chocolate cake,

211
00:17:00,740 --> 00:17:04,300
but beyond the fact that both are
rich and satisfying, I can't do it.

212
00:17:04,300 --> 00:17:06,580
The fact of the matter
is that the Ninth Symphony

213
00:17:06,580 --> 00:17:10,700
is not just any old piece of music,
it's a colossal achievement,

214
00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:14,020
a comprehensive if unpredictable
tour through the human condition.

215
00:17:14,020 --> 00:17:17,180
It would be better to compare it
to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

216
00:17:17,180 --> 00:17:19,020
or the Great Wall Of China.

217
00:17:19,020 --> 00:17:22,820
In fact it's so big it probably
can be seen from space.

218
00:17:22,820 --> 00:17:24,460
And it has great tunes.

219
00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:31,220
This is Beethoven
at his most iconoclastic.

220
00:17:31,220 --> 00:17:33,620
He hadn't written
a symphony for a dozen years

221
00:17:33,620 --> 00:17:36,900
and he really was now the most
celebrated composer in the world.

222
00:17:36,900 --> 00:17:38,500
So his devoted supporters

223
00:17:38,500 --> 00:17:41,180
flocked to see how he no longer
just broke the rules,

224
00:17:41,180 --> 00:17:43,260
but barely acknowledged
that they existed.

225
00:18:02,460 --> 00:18:05,060
The inspiration
behind the Ninth Symphony

226
00:18:05,060 --> 00:18:08,580
was Friedrich Schiller's poem
An Die Freude, the Ode To Joy -

227
00:18:08,580 --> 00:18:12,460
a stirring celebration of human
happiness and universal brotherhood.

228
00:18:17,020 --> 00:18:21,580
He first read Schiller's
An Die Freude when he was a student.

229
00:18:21,580 --> 00:18:23,620
And he wrote a setting of it

230
00:18:23,620 --> 00:18:26,700
only a year or two after
he first read it,

231
00:18:26,700 --> 00:18:28,580
so he was about 20 or 21.

232
00:18:28,580 --> 00:18:33,220
So the idea to set that poem had
been in his mind all his adult life.

233
00:18:37,460 --> 00:18:40,580
Remember, Beethoven lived through
the French Revolution

234
00:18:40,580 --> 00:18:44,820
and there's a crucial line,
"Alles menschen werden bruder,"
all mankind will be brothers.

235
00:18:44,820 --> 00:18:47,620
And that line appealed to him
because Beethoven was,

236
00:18:47,620 --> 00:18:52,060
although he never spelled it
out as such, the great democrat.

237
00:18:52,060 --> 00:18:53,900
I get this feeling
there was a moment

238
00:18:53,900 --> 00:18:56,740
he thought, "I can't go
further with just instruments."

239
00:18:56,740 --> 00:18:59,940
Well, he brought voices in
for the first time in a symphony.

240
00:18:59,940 --> 00:19:02,460
He struggled over that.

241
00:19:02,460 --> 00:19:05,260
He could not work out a way
to bring them in.

242
00:19:05,260 --> 00:19:09,780
And the sudden idea of the solo bass
singer singing...

243
00:19:09,780 --> 00:19:12,340
# O freunde. #

244
00:19:12,340 --> 00:19:15,620
Which to us again
is as natural as breathing,

245
00:19:15,620 --> 00:19:19,860
was about his fourth or fifth idea
before he got what he wanted.

246
00:19:30,420 --> 00:19:35,660
# O Freunde... #

247
00:20:27,740 --> 00:20:30,780
Right from the beginning, this final
section of the Ninth Symphony

248
00:20:30,780 --> 00:20:34,220
seemed to take on
an independent life of its own.

249
00:20:34,220 --> 00:20:38,220
There's always been a particular
resonance for German speakers

250
00:20:38,220 --> 00:20:41,140
and in the 1930s and '40s,
it was used as a propaganda tool

251
00:20:41,140 --> 00:20:46,420
by the Nazi Party, performed to mark
such events as Hitler's birthday.

252
00:20:54,380 --> 00:20:57,780
Well, it had such incredible
familiarity value, didn't it?

253
00:20:57,780 --> 00:21:00,900
I mean, it's one of the great things
about the main tune of the symphony

254
00:21:00,900 --> 00:21:05,100
is that once you've heard it once -
it stays with you.

255
00:21:05,100 --> 00:21:07,340
You could always hum along with it.

256
00:21:07,340 --> 00:21:11,900
The work is about brotherhood
and the trouble with it is

257
00:21:11,900 --> 00:21:17,340
that it's asking you to come
together in one uniformed mass

258
00:21:17,340 --> 00:21:20,820
which suits the kind of pictures
we're seeing at the moment.

259
00:21:20,820 --> 00:21:23,740
You don't have to interpret it
that way, however,

260
00:21:23,740 --> 00:21:27,460
because you can always say
we need to come together

261
00:21:27,460 --> 00:21:32,900
because we're reacting against
an authoritarian idea of normality,

262
00:21:32,900 --> 00:21:36,180
so the piece can be read two ways.

263
00:21:36,180 --> 00:21:39,220
But the music isn't ambiguous at all,
is it? No, it's about joy.

264
00:21:39,220 --> 00:21:42,900
Yeah, and energy and the realisation
that it's a statement

265
00:21:42,900 --> 00:21:46,740
of everybody reaching for something
bigger... Sure. ..and better.

266
00:21:50,780 --> 00:21:54,900
On Christmas Day in 1989, a global
audience of a hundred million

267
00:21:54,900 --> 00:21:57,420
watched Leonard Bernstein
conduct the work in Berlin.

268
00:21:57,420 --> 00:21:58,740
A month after the wall

269
00:21:58,740 --> 00:22:01,780
that had divided the communist East
from the West came down.

270
00:22:10,020 --> 00:22:14,660
Very odd, though, that if it starts
a poem about joy

271
00:22:14,660 --> 00:22:18,220
that it has so transmogrified
into music about freedom.

272
00:22:18,220 --> 00:22:24,340
The musical quality is so inspired
in its accumulative power

273
00:22:24,340 --> 00:22:27,300
that it seems, and this to me
is one of the reasons

274
00:22:27,300 --> 00:22:31,820
why it's such an important piece
for very epic global occasions,

275
00:22:31,820 --> 00:22:33,500
that it seems that the music

276
00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:36,580
is so much bigger
than anybody who's taking part in it.

277
00:22:42,300 --> 00:22:46,460
In September 2001,
just four days after 9/11,

278
00:22:46,460 --> 00:22:48,700
Leonard Slatkin conducted
the choral finale

279
00:22:48,700 --> 00:22:52,740
at the Last Night Of The Proms as
a tribute to the victims of terror.

280
00:23:18,340 --> 00:23:21,780
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

281
00:23:23,020 --> 00:23:26,580
Many years later, Hector Berlioz
would write that with the Ninth,

282
00:23:26,580 --> 00:23:29,540
Beethoven had built himself
a magnificent monument

283
00:23:29,540 --> 00:23:32,580
and imagined the composer
saying to himself,

284
00:23:32,580 --> 00:23:36,180
"Let death come now,
my work is done."

285
00:23:41,340 --> 00:23:45,020
Beethoven died on
the 26th of March 1827,

286
00:23:45,020 --> 00:23:47,980
three years after
completing his Ninth Symphony.

287
00:23:47,980 --> 00:23:50,020
He was 56.

288
00:23:50,020 --> 00:23:53,900
20,000 mourners
attended his funeral -

289
00:23:53,900 --> 00:23:56,300
one in ten
of the Viennese population.

290
00:24:00,380 --> 00:24:03,740
Among them was another symphonist,
Franz Schubert.

291
00:24:05,340 --> 00:24:08,740
He accompanied the body
to this graveyard in North Vienna,

292
00:24:08,740 --> 00:24:12,540
but tragically, within two years,
barely into his 30s,

293
00:24:12,540 --> 00:24:14,620
he would himself be buried here,

294
00:24:14,620 --> 00:24:17,060
just a few metres
from his great hero.

295
00:24:21,700 --> 00:24:23,740
Yes.

296
00:24:23,740 --> 00:24:28,580
This is where Schubert
was first put to rest in 1828.

297
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:31,260
What's this part of the funeral...

298
00:24:31,260 --> 00:24:34,540
It says, "Music has laid
to rest a rich treasure

299
00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:38,020
"and still greater hopes
for the future."

300
00:24:38,020 --> 00:24:40,260
But ironically
his two best symphonies

301
00:24:40,260 --> 00:24:42,020
were of course in the future.

302
00:24:42,020 --> 00:24:47,180
They weren't actually discovered
until, um, 1839

303
00:24:47,180 --> 00:24:49,300
and the Unfinished
wasn't first performed

304
00:24:49,300 --> 00:24:52,660
until the 1860s here in Vienna.

305
00:24:52,660 --> 00:24:54,980
So that's 30 years after his death.
30 years after.

306
00:25:17,260 --> 00:25:19,620
During his short lifetime,
Schubert acquired

307
00:25:19,620 --> 00:25:22,060
a reputation for his songs
and piano pieces,

308
00:25:22,060 --> 00:25:26,740
but he'd actually composed
over half a dozen symphonies.

309
00:25:26,740 --> 00:25:29,700
However, because they were not
specially commissioned,

310
00:25:29,700 --> 00:25:32,020
none had a public performance
in his lifetime,

311
00:25:32,020 --> 00:25:37,700
and the most famous was left half
completed, the Unfinished Symphony.

312
00:25:37,700 --> 00:25:40,980
Just before he died,
he wanted to write symphonies

313
00:25:40,980 --> 00:25:44,380
and really concentrate on big ideas,

314
00:25:44,380 --> 00:25:48,260
which is why the Ninth Symphony
of his has this huge grand plan.

315
00:25:48,260 --> 00:25:50,900
I think he was intending
that to be something...

316
00:25:50,900 --> 00:25:53,340
The Grosse Symphony? Die Grosse
Symphony, yes.

317
00:25:58,900 --> 00:26:01,860
The Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment

318
00:26:01,860 --> 00:26:06,540
are performing the C Major symphony
on authentic period instruments.

319
00:26:06,540 --> 00:26:11,420
But Schubert himself only ever heard
an orchestra play this symphony

320
00:26:11,420 --> 00:26:14,260
in a rehearsal in 1828 for
a concert that was never given.

321
00:26:16,900 --> 00:26:20,580
His music was invariably
performed by and for his friends,

322
00:26:20,580 --> 00:26:23,300
often in the comfortable
surroundings of this school

323
00:26:23,300 --> 00:26:25,140
where his father was the headmaster.

324
00:26:27,660 --> 00:26:29,980
The importance of Schubert
is that you see

325
00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:32,940
a much more relaxed attitude
to the musical material.

326
00:26:32,940 --> 00:26:36,500
He was really a superb composer
because he could play with

327
00:26:36,500 --> 00:26:41,700
the music in his symphonies,
playing with sound for its own sake

328
00:26:41,700 --> 00:26:45,540
and not worrying too much
about where it's going all the time,

329
00:26:45,540 --> 00:26:49,580
although there is that
sort of Beethoven logic as well.

330
00:27:14,780 --> 00:27:17,220
He leaves spaces in the music

331
00:27:17,220 --> 00:27:20,860
for anybody with any ideas
whatever to enter.

332
00:27:20,860 --> 00:27:23,540
That's part of the generosity.

333
00:27:23,540 --> 00:27:25,980
There's something very
positive about the music,

334
00:27:25,980 --> 00:27:28,300
but also something very
daring at the same time.

335
00:27:40,780 --> 00:27:44,860
There's something about Schubert's
music which takes the listener

336
00:27:44,860 --> 00:27:48,820
on a journey and sometimes the
listener doesn't know
quite where it's going

337
00:27:48,820 --> 00:27:53,100
and Schubert leaves the listener
deliberately asking which way.

338
00:27:53,100 --> 00:27:54,820
The ambiguity's wonderful.

339
00:27:54,820 --> 00:28:00,300
It is hugely confident music, which
makes it all the more tragic that

340
00:28:00,300 --> 00:28:03,500
he would say "I want to write
symphonies" and then died.

341
00:28:11,420 --> 00:28:13,860
And later he was moved from here?

342
00:28:13,860 --> 00:28:16,140
He was exhumed in 1888.

343
00:28:16,140 --> 00:28:21,140
The cemetery was decommissioned
and his body was moved to

344
00:28:21,140 --> 00:28:23,820
the central cemetery
along with Beethoven,

345
00:28:23,820 --> 00:28:27,500
who is almost next to him here.

346
00:28:27,500 --> 00:28:29,900
Oh, bye bye, Schubert. Bye.

347
00:28:32,060 --> 00:28:35,420
And here's Beethoven.
Here's Beethoven.

348
00:28:35,420 --> 00:28:39,420
This is where he was originally
put to rest.

349
00:28:39,420 --> 00:28:42,220
This is a modern replacement
of the original graveside,

350
00:28:42,220 --> 00:28:45,540
but it's still basically
the same design.

351
00:28:45,540 --> 00:28:48,020
It looks much austere, doesn't it,
than Schubert?

352
00:28:48,020 --> 00:28:50,420
Yes, and very much grander.
Ferdinand Schubert,

353
00:28:50,420 --> 00:28:53,060
Schubert's brother, claimed to have
designed this.

354
00:28:53,060 --> 00:28:55,220
Here we have Apollo's Lyre

355
00:28:55,220 --> 00:28:59,020
and at the very top we have
an ouroboros,

356
00:28:59,020 --> 00:29:02,940
this is an old Egyptian symbol for
universality,

357
00:29:02,940 --> 00:29:05,460
a snake consuming its own tail,

358
00:29:05,460 --> 00:29:09,540
and in the middle a butterfly that's
meant to represent immortality.

359
00:29:19,500 --> 00:29:22,700
All Beethoven's symphonies
had already been published

360
00:29:22,700 --> 00:29:26,220
during his lifetime and began
to receive public performances

361
00:29:26,220 --> 00:29:29,460
in major cities across Europe.
Our story now takes us to Paris.

362
00:29:33,740 --> 00:29:37,580
In 1825, despite fierce opposition
from his father,

363
00:29:37,580 --> 00:29:41,860
a provincial doctor, a young medical
student called Hector Berlioz

364
00:29:41,860 --> 00:29:45,300
quit his studies, leaving
the dissection of corpses

365
00:29:45,300 --> 00:29:48,340
to pursue his all-consuming ambition
to become a composer,

366
00:29:48,340 --> 00:29:49,340
a great composer.

367
00:29:55,660 --> 00:29:58,660
He enrolled here
at the Conservatoire of Music

368
00:29:58,660 --> 00:30:00,940
and threw himself into his work.

369
00:30:00,940 --> 00:30:04,980
But not long into his studies,
he had a life-changing experience,

370
00:30:04,980 --> 00:30:06,620
a revelation.

371
00:30:06,620 --> 00:30:09,660
Hector was rather prone to
revelations.

372
00:30:09,660 --> 00:30:12,540
He heard the symphonies of Beethoven

373
00:30:12,540 --> 00:30:15,340
and in particular the first
performances in France

374
00:30:15,340 --> 00:30:17,380
of Beethoven's Fifth.

375
00:30:21,500 --> 00:30:26,340
Beethoven, who had died just
the previous year, was regarded

376
00:30:26,340 --> 00:30:29,500
by the French establishment
as a German who wrote bizarre,

377
00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:33,660
incoherent, harsh and noisy music
with no melody to speak of,

378
00:30:33,660 --> 00:30:37,660
disagreeable to listen to
and horribly difficult to play.

379
00:30:37,660 --> 00:30:39,700
Berlioz thought it was wonderful.

380
00:30:47,660 --> 00:30:52,340
"The Fifth," he said, "gave wings to
Beethoven's despair,

381
00:30:52,340 --> 00:30:56,940
"but also to his nobility of soul,
this style of writing is far above

382
00:30:56,940 --> 00:31:01,020
"and beyond anything ever written
in orchestral music until now."

383
00:31:02,820 --> 00:31:07,220
He himself, in his own words,
"would fire along another path".

384
00:31:15,020 --> 00:31:17,100
Berlioz, of course,
was a naughty boy.

385
00:31:17,100 --> 00:31:20,380
He never obeyed the rules
when he was at the Conservatoire

386
00:31:20,380 --> 00:31:26,780
and he was one of the first to say
so unashamedly that music can

387
00:31:26,780 --> 00:31:33,020
express the self, the romantic
ideal of the creative artist

388
00:31:33,020 --> 00:31:36,940
at loggerheads with his environment,
living solely for his art.

389
00:31:36,940 --> 00:31:39,540
I love his music and I love
everything about him,

390
00:31:39,540 --> 00:31:41,460
what he stood for.

391
00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:50,820
This is the Place de la Bastille,
named after one of the key events

392
00:31:50,820 --> 00:31:52,540
of the French Revolution -

393
00:31:52,540 --> 00:31:55,700
the storming of the Bastille Prison
in 1789.

394
00:31:55,700 --> 00:32:00,380
But 1830 was also a revolutionary
year and this column commemorates

395
00:32:00,380 --> 00:32:04,060
the death of 18,000 Parisians
who died during three days

396
00:32:04,060 --> 00:32:08,020
of bitter street fighting
following a disputed election.

397
00:32:13,100 --> 00:32:15,820
Berlioz was excited.

398
00:32:15,820 --> 00:32:18,660
It was as if he would finish his
musical work for the day and then

399
00:32:18,660 --> 00:32:20,620
dash outside, pistol in hand,

400
00:32:20,620 --> 00:32:23,500
to join the riots and
the street fighting.

401
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:25,660
His symphony was to have a story,

402
00:32:25,660 --> 00:32:29,180
an episode in the life
of an artist in five parts.

403
00:32:34,180 --> 00:32:37,980
Berlioz's short story was to be
printed in the concert programme -

404
00:32:37,980 --> 00:32:42,180
"Our hero falls in love
with an unattainable woman.

405
00:32:42,180 --> 00:32:45,540
"Pushed towards madness by
unrequited passion,

406
00:32:45,540 --> 00:32:48,500
"he attempts to kill himself with
an overdose of opium,

407
00:32:48,500 --> 00:32:51,180
"but the drug causes him to suffer

408
00:32:51,180 --> 00:32:54,500
"a sequence of ever more grotesque
hallucinations".

409
00:32:57,380 --> 00:33:00,500
Berlioz was profoundly influenced
by Beethoven's music,

410
00:33:00,500 --> 00:33:03,740
but he twisted the Beethoven model
into startling new forms -

411
00:33:03,740 --> 00:33:06,340
the journey from darkness
into light that we see

412
00:33:06,340 --> 00:33:10,220
in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony into
a drug-induced descent into hell.

413
00:33:18,180 --> 00:33:23,100
He called his new work the Symphonie
Fantastique, the Fantastic Symphony,

414
00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:26,860
"fantastic" meaning uncanny
or unreal as in a dream,

415
00:33:26,860 --> 00:33:31,500
but also "incroyable", unbelievable,
terrifying, extraordinary.

416
00:33:33,460 --> 00:33:36,060
And it is an extraordinary
musical achievement.

417
00:33:36,060 --> 00:33:40,220
One of his formal innovations
was the use of an idee fixe,

418
00:33:40,220 --> 00:33:43,740
a tune that symbolises
an obsessive idea.

419
00:33:55,180 --> 00:33:57,980
This strange, unearthly melody
lasts nearly 40 seconds

420
00:33:57,980 --> 00:34:01,660
and keeps recurring
throughout the symphony.

421
00:34:01,660 --> 00:34:04,100
To gain an insight into
how this actually works

422
00:34:04,100 --> 00:34:07,500
I visited the composer Robert Saxton
at his home in South London.

423
00:34:13,020 --> 00:34:16,460
So he keeps the tune the same right
the way through the whole piece?

424
00:34:16,460 --> 00:34:20,540
It appears in different guises,
but it's always very recognisable.

425
00:34:20,540 --> 00:34:25,620
The landscape changes around it
rather than the tune itself changing.

426
00:34:25,620 --> 00:34:28,220
Is this one here?
Shall I play it? Yes.

427
00:34:28,220 --> 00:34:29,860
The beginning of it? Absolutely.

428
00:34:38,420 --> 00:34:41,660
A composer like Beethoven
will take something that's more

429
00:34:41,660 --> 00:34:46,740
like a motif and gradually take
parts out of it and develop it,

430
00:34:46,740 --> 00:34:50,380
whereas with Berlioz the idee fixe
remains more or less intact.

431
00:34:55,860 --> 00:35:01,260
The opening is revelry and passions
and he's dreaming

432
00:35:01,260 --> 00:35:03,140
and the idee fixe is the beloved.

433
00:35:03,140 --> 00:35:06,060
Yeah. That is her. Right.

434
00:35:06,060 --> 00:35:09,900
He then here introduces the tune
totally unaccompanied and

435
00:35:09,900 --> 00:35:13,660
when he does put the accompaniment
in, where most composers would have

436
00:35:13,660 --> 00:35:17,700
had a running accompaniment, he's got
this jerky "badum-badum-badum".

437
00:35:28,620 --> 00:35:31,420
Berlioz couldn't play the piano,
which is significant.

438
00:35:31,420 --> 00:35:34,260
He played the flute and the guitar.

439
00:35:34,260 --> 00:35:37,620
And I think he thought in these
great, long,

440
00:35:37,620 --> 00:35:40,180
almost folk-derived melodies.

441
00:36:02,500 --> 00:36:05,300
For Berlioz, the conventional
orchestra, as it existed

442
00:36:05,300 --> 00:36:08,820
in the early 1830s, was
too polite and genteel sounding

443
00:36:08,820 --> 00:36:11,620
for his vision
of Symphonie Fantastique.

444
00:36:12,820 --> 00:36:15,220
For all his wild,
romantic imagination,

445
00:36:15,220 --> 00:36:19,780
he approached actually writing
the score as if he was a scientist.

446
00:36:19,780 --> 00:36:22,420
How could he get exactly
the sound that he wanted?

447
00:36:22,420 --> 00:36:26,020
"You big baby," he wrote addressing
an imaginary orchestra,

448
00:36:26,020 --> 00:36:28,260
"It's time you learned to speak
properly

449
00:36:28,260 --> 00:36:29,900
"and I am the one to teach you."

450
00:36:32,060 --> 00:36:36,260
He examined the potential of
the instruments

451
00:36:36,260 --> 00:36:41,660
and fearlessly felt unconstrained
by what had come before him.

452
00:36:51,700 --> 00:36:54,900
Berlioz was a child of
the Industrial Revolution.

453
00:36:54,900 --> 00:36:57,180
Heavy industry was
transforming Europe

454
00:36:57,180 --> 00:37:00,220
and the invention of the valve
in the 1820s meant

455
00:37:00,220 --> 00:37:02,060
that there were
new brass instruments.

456
00:37:03,820 --> 00:37:07,260
The tuba was patented within
five years of the premiere of

457
00:37:07,260 --> 00:37:10,940
his symphony and
the score was revised

458
00:37:10,940 --> 00:37:13,220
to include its deep, smooth tones.

459
00:37:22,340 --> 00:37:26,100
Obsessively interested
in the design of instruments

460
00:37:26,100 --> 00:37:28,220
and the techniques used
to play them,

461
00:37:28,220 --> 00:37:30,460
he began to create
a new type of orchestra,

462
00:37:30,460 --> 00:37:33,740
one that could play the music
he heard in his head.

463
00:37:39,260 --> 00:37:42,660
I adore this Symphonie Fantastique.
As a composer?

464
00:37:42,660 --> 00:37:46,500
Yes, it's endless,
endlessly fascinating.

465
00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:50,620
It's quite extraordinary, the use
of the orchestra, the blending

466
00:37:50,620 --> 00:37:54,620
of the tone colours that he uses,
the extraordinary orchestration.

467
00:38:18,220 --> 00:38:23,060
He seems to think of the orchestra
as a virtuoso instrument in itself.

468
00:38:23,060 --> 00:38:26,180
He's the first composer really
to specify how many instruments

469
00:38:26,180 --> 00:38:27,860
he wants in each section.

470
00:38:27,860 --> 00:38:30,740
He's very specific that it's got to
be 15 first violins,

471
00:38:30,740 --> 00:38:33,020
15 second violins.

472
00:38:33,020 --> 00:38:36,260
And, indeed, he asks
for a 60-piece string orchestra,

473
00:38:36,260 --> 00:38:39,780
very large by those standards
and by our standards.

474
00:38:46,900 --> 00:38:49,460
He extends the technique of them.

475
00:38:49,460 --> 00:38:53,340
He gives them tremolo to play which
is when they go "drr-drr-drr"

476
00:38:53,340 --> 00:38:56,780
like this on the string, which was
quite unusual for those days.

477
00:39:10,220 --> 00:39:11,540
Throughout his life,

478
00:39:11,540 --> 00:39:14,900
Berlioz continued to speculate
about his ideal orchestra,

479
00:39:14,900 --> 00:39:20,740
an ensemble that would
have unsurpassed
rhythmic and melodic power.

480
00:39:20,740 --> 00:39:24,420
Eventually he was to calculate
the exact number of players,

481
00:39:24,420 --> 00:39:27,780
this ideal would require -
467.

482
00:39:27,780 --> 00:39:30,060
That's more than four times
the number

483
00:39:30,060 --> 00:39:31,620
of players in a modern orchestra.

484
00:39:38,100 --> 00:39:40,100
Even with a mere 80 or so players,

485
00:39:40,100 --> 00:39:43,900
the Symphonie Fantastique is
an overwhelming experience

486
00:39:43,900 --> 00:39:47,940
and the detailed literary programme
only adds to the intensity.

487
00:39:49,940 --> 00:39:53,460
The Halle Orchestra are playing
the March To The Scaffold.

488
00:39:55,340 --> 00:39:58,860
Berlioz's romantic hero has a vision
that he's murdered his beloved

489
00:39:58,860 --> 00:40:02,380
and that he is to be
guillotined for the crime.

490
00:40:02,380 --> 00:40:06,100
His head will be laid on the block
and we will hear the idee fixe

491
00:40:06,100 --> 00:40:08,900
run through his mind like a
final thought of his beloved,

492
00:40:08,900 --> 00:40:12,300
only to be literally chopped
off by the fall of the blade.

493
00:40:30,620 --> 00:40:34,140
Bizarre though the storyline of
the Symphonie Fantastique might be,

494
00:40:34,140 --> 00:40:38,740
the story behind the composition
of the work is stranger yet.

495
00:40:38,740 --> 00:40:41,180
One September in 1827,

496
00:40:41,180 --> 00:40:45,020
Berlioz came here to the Theatre
de l'Odeon to see two performances

497
00:40:45,020 --> 00:40:49,180
of Shakespeare in English,
Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet.

498
00:40:49,180 --> 00:40:52,380
The star of the show was an Irish
actress called Harriet Smithson.

499
00:40:52,380 --> 00:40:56,020
In Hamlet she was Ophelia
and in Romeo and Juliet,

500
00:40:56,020 --> 00:40:58,220
she was, of course, playing Juliet.

501
00:40:58,220 --> 00:41:01,460
Berlioz fell madly in love.

502
00:41:05,780 --> 00:41:09,940
How could he, a humble music
student, ever hope to win the heart

503
00:41:09,940 --> 00:41:12,140
of this great Shakespearean actress?

504
00:41:14,180 --> 00:41:17,340
This desire was the seed
for the Symphonie Fantastique.

505
00:41:17,340 --> 00:41:21,620
He would write a grand symphony,
be recognised as a great composer

506
00:41:21,620 --> 00:41:25,740
and then he could approach
the beloved Harriet as an equal.

507
00:41:28,940 --> 00:41:32,180
To help tell the story
of their peculiar romance

508
00:41:32,180 --> 00:41:34,900
I've asked my fellow actor,
Emma Fielding, to meet me

509
00:41:34,900 --> 00:41:37,660
at the British ambassador's
residence in Paris.

510
00:41:41,780 --> 00:41:43,980
So 1827...

511
00:41:43,980 --> 00:41:47,580
Was when Berlioz first saw Harriet
in the theatre playing Ophelia

512
00:41:47,580 --> 00:41:50,260
and then Juliet
and fell madly in love with her.

513
00:41:50,260 --> 00:41:54,260
Now, it was three years later that
he wrote the Symphonie Fantastique,

514
00:41:54,260 --> 00:41:56,540
which is based on
his thoughts about her

515
00:41:56,540 --> 00:41:58,980
and that's 1830,
so there's quite a long time.

516
00:41:58,980 --> 00:42:02,620
Three years, but during that time
he pursued her quite voraciously.

517
00:42:02,620 --> 00:42:04,380
Never actually met.

518
00:42:04,380 --> 00:42:06,620
He didn't want to meet her.
He avoided her.

519
00:42:06,620 --> 00:42:08,540
Yes, but he took a flat round the
corner

520
00:42:08,540 --> 00:42:11,380
so he could follow her movements to
and from the theatre.

521
00:42:11,380 --> 00:42:14,380
So basically he was stalking her?
He was stalking her.

522
00:42:20,700 --> 00:42:21,780
And at the end of 1832,

523
00:42:21,780 --> 00:42:24,780
she attends a concert,
which she doesn't normally do.

524
00:42:24,780 --> 00:42:26,820
She's not a great classical
music lover.

525
00:42:26,820 --> 00:42:30,020
And she reads the programme notes
for the Symphonie Fantastique

526
00:42:30,020 --> 00:42:32,100
and realises it's all about her.

527
00:42:32,100 --> 00:42:34,700
Which is extraordinary,
because all of Paris society

528
00:42:34,700 --> 00:42:37,580
knew about his infatuation
but she didn't. But she didn't.

529
00:42:37,580 --> 00:42:40,380
But that evening
they are introduced to each other,

530
00:42:40,380 --> 00:42:43,460
he proposes and she accepts.

531
00:42:43,460 --> 00:42:46,100
And then ten months later,
they were married here

532
00:42:46,100 --> 00:42:50,020
on 3rd October 1833
in the British Embassy in Paris.

533
00:42:58,260 --> 00:43:00,900
"My 30-year war
against the mediocre,

534
00:43:00,900 --> 00:43:02,780
"the academics and the death."

535
00:43:02,780 --> 00:43:05,940
That was Berlioz's own description
of his career in Paris

536
00:43:05,940 --> 00:43:09,420
during which time he composed
four symphonies in 12 years,

537
00:43:09,420 --> 00:43:13,100
the Symphonie Fantastique, a second
symphony based on a Lord Byron poem,

538
00:43:13,100 --> 00:43:17,500
a massive funeral symphony,
and this Shakespearian masterpiece.

539
00:43:22,900 --> 00:43:26,140
The Romeo and Juliet Symphony
is the 36-year-old Berlioz's

540
00:43:26,140 --> 00:43:29,780
musical expression of his love
for both Harriet

541
00:43:29,780 --> 00:43:34,020
and for the works of the playwright
who first brought them together.

542
00:43:35,660 --> 00:43:38,620
The symphony is his most
sophisticated storytelling yet.

543
00:43:38,620 --> 00:43:42,180
The orchestra here doesn't simply
evoke the story,

544
00:43:42,180 --> 00:43:45,340
he wants the instruments to become
the actors in the play

545
00:43:45,340 --> 00:43:48,820
and actually deliver
Shakespeare's lines.

546
00:43:51,420 --> 00:43:54,540
The flute and woodwinds
are the voice of Juliet.

547
00:43:59,260 --> 00:44:03,100
Yeah, lovely. Then we hear the
cellos, representing Romeo's speech.

548
00:44:16,260 --> 00:44:17,820
Then her fear.

549
00:44:20,180 --> 00:44:23,300
He had this idea that no one else
had done before,

550
00:44:23,300 --> 00:44:26,380
that he didn't need the words
if he could get the listener

551
00:44:26,380 --> 00:44:29,500
to think that the words might be
somewhere in the orchestra.

552
00:44:33,780 --> 00:44:37,420
Being actors, Emma and I couldn't
resist trying an experiment here.

553
00:44:37,420 --> 00:44:40,660
Just how closely does Berlioz
parallel Shakespeare's lines

554
00:44:40,660 --> 00:44:43,580
and the action from the balcony
scene with his music?

555
00:44:46,140 --> 00:44:49,820
But soft, what light through
yonder window breaks?

556
00:44:49,820 --> 00:44:53,340
It is the east
and Juliet is the sun.

557
00:44:59,340 --> 00:45:01,860
You can clearly hear
Romeo's climb to the balcony

558
00:45:01,860 --> 00:45:05,660
in the cellos' ardent ascending
phrase and Romeo and Juliet's

559
00:45:05,660 --> 00:45:08,260
blossoming love
in the radiant music that follows.

560
00:45:19,100 --> 00:45:21,900
Berlioz strives to give
the audience all the nuance

561
00:45:21,900 --> 00:45:26,860
and drama of Shakespeare's poetry
as he himself experienced it.

562
00:45:26,860 --> 00:45:29,860
"Shakespeare," he said
"hit me like a thunder bolt

563
00:45:29,860 --> 00:45:33,220
"and revealed in a flash of
lightning the whole heaven of art."

564
00:45:39,580 --> 00:45:43,100
When he'd first seen Harriet
portray Juliet on stage,
he spoke no English.

565
00:45:43,100 --> 00:45:48,700
Now, ten years later,
he'd mastered the language
and could translate it into music.

566
00:45:50,500 --> 00:45:54,100
What man art thou
that thus bescreened in night

567
00:45:54,100 --> 00:45:55,820
so stumblest on my counsel?

568
00:45:58,820 --> 00:46:02,340
I know not how to tell thee
who I am.

569
00:46:02,340 --> 00:46:04,980
My name, dear saint,
is hateful to myself

570
00:46:04,980 --> 00:46:06,780
because it is an enemy to thee.

571
00:46:16,620 --> 00:46:23,300
My ears have not yet drunk
a hundred words of that tongue's
uttering, yet I know the sound.

572
00:46:25,100 --> 00:46:29,140
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

573
00:46:29,140 --> 00:46:32,260
Neither, fair saint,
if either thee displease.

574
00:46:59,420 --> 00:47:02,620
Three years after the premiere
of Romeo and Juliet,

575
00:47:02,620 --> 00:47:05,300
he and Harriet's marriage failed
and they separated.

576
00:47:05,300 --> 00:47:07,500
She died a decade later.

577
00:47:12,940 --> 00:47:15,060
Then, shortly before his own death,

578
00:47:15,060 --> 00:47:19,060
Berlioz returned to Grenoble
in provincial France,
where he'd been born.

579
00:47:21,540 --> 00:47:24,100
Over 60, lonely
and in failing health,

580
00:47:24,100 --> 00:47:26,420
he was overcome
by childhood memories.

581
00:47:32,940 --> 00:47:37,540
As a teenager, he'd been infatuated
by a girl called Estelle.

582
00:47:37,540 --> 00:47:45,220
He now tracked her down and though
she was a widow of 70, in his
imagination, she seemed unchanged.

583
00:47:45,220 --> 00:47:48,540
"Star who brightened the morning
of my life," he declared to her,

584
00:47:48,540 --> 00:47:51,180
"I should write you a symphony.

585
00:47:51,180 --> 00:47:54,500
"Only with the orchestra can
I express what I feel for you."

586
00:48:01,580 --> 00:48:05,620
Berlioz's literary symphonies
realised the potential
for storytelling

587
00:48:05,620 --> 00:48:08,660
that Beethoven had first explored
with his Pastoral Symphony.

588
00:48:10,700 --> 00:48:13,940
But the next step forward for
symphonic writing was to come from

589
00:48:13,940 --> 00:48:17,540
a school of thought centred on a
small town in Germany called Weimar.

590
00:48:20,980 --> 00:48:24,740
It was dominated by these
two intellectual giants.

591
00:48:24,740 --> 00:48:27,580
The first, on the left,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

592
00:48:27,580 --> 00:48:31,500
and on the right, Friedrich
Schiller, whose Ode To Joy

593
00:48:31,500 --> 00:48:34,620
Beethoven had set
in his Ninth Symphony.

594
00:48:40,780 --> 00:48:46,660
Weimar was a powerhouse of political
and philosophical thought in the
middle of the 19th century.

595
00:48:46,660 --> 00:48:50,380
But it was one charismatic
individual who was to put it
on the musical map.

596
00:48:51,540 --> 00:48:56,580
And this is his distinctive piano
arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth.

597
00:48:56,580 --> 00:48:58,420
He was the great Franz Liszt.

598
00:49:02,300 --> 00:49:07,340
When Liszt was offered the post
of artist in residence
by the court here in Weimar,

599
00:49:07,340 --> 00:49:09,420
many people were surprised.

600
00:49:09,420 --> 00:49:12,580
He was the most famous
piano virtuoso in Europe,

601
00:49:12,580 --> 00:49:18,340
a personality and a talent
that had been adored and celebrated
like a rock star for 20 years

602
00:49:18,340 --> 00:49:20,940
but he had little experience
of conducting

603
00:49:20,940 --> 00:49:23,980
and most of his compositions
were for the piano.

604
00:49:23,980 --> 00:49:28,700
Why on earth would this flamboyant
man take on the unfamiliar
responsibilities

605
00:49:28,700 --> 00:49:34,540
of executive manager and conductor
that his role as Kapellmeister
extraordinaire required?

606
00:49:35,580 --> 00:49:37,180
Well...

607
00:49:39,180 --> 00:49:41,660
..perhaps THIS was
part of the appeal.

608
00:49:48,220 --> 00:49:53,100
Unlike Beethoven and Berlioz,
who never made much money from their
careers as freelance musicians,

609
00:49:53,100 --> 00:49:56,860
Liszt was used to an affluent
and comfortable lifestyle.

610
00:49:58,380 --> 00:50:00,980
Accepting the patronage
of the Grand Duke of Weimar

611
00:50:00,980 --> 00:50:06,260
guaranteed that he could continue
to live and work in the lavish style
to which he'd become accustomed.

612
00:50:10,260 --> 00:50:16,500
In his first decade here,
he wrote a dozen, not symphonies,
but symphonic poems,

613
00:50:16,500 --> 00:50:19,500
single-movement works
that use the full orchestra

614
00:50:19,500 --> 00:50:23,260
to explore new ways
of pursuing a musical narrative.

615
00:50:25,460 --> 00:50:29,260
They were all programmatic
and highly literate.

616
00:50:29,260 --> 00:50:32,180
His sources include Schiller
and Shakespeare

617
00:50:32,180 --> 00:50:35,540
but they refrain from
any kind of linear story.

618
00:50:35,540 --> 00:50:37,780
In their concentration
on mood and character

619
00:50:37,780 --> 00:50:40,780
they were more like illustrations
than translations.

620
00:50:45,940 --> 00:50:50,580
The idea was that this new music,
this symphonic avant-garde,

621
00:50:50,580 --> 00:50:53,180
would speak to an educated
audience that already knew

622
00:50:53,180 --> 00:50:55,460
the literature behind the work.

623
00:50:58,820 --> 00:51:01,140
His compositional ideas reflected

624
00:51:01,140 --> 00:51:04,380
his own individuality,
his own flamboyance,

625
00:51:04,380 --> 00:51:07,540
his own egocentric personality,
perhaps one could say.

626
00:51:07,540 --> 00:51:13,940
And he decided to go down
a very dark and macabre path.

627
00:51:13,940 --> 00:51:19,180
So it was natural that he would
be drawn to the great German play -
Goethe's Faust.

628
00:51:32,180 --> 00:51:36,780
Liszt's first full-scale symphony
is a powerful and disturbing
orchestral companion piece

629
00:51:36,780 --> 00:51:39,100
to Goethe's poetic drama

630
00:51:39,100 --> 00:51:42,780
about a man who sells
his soul to the devil,

631
00:51:42,780 --> 00:51:48,020
written for the inauguration
of a statue in Weimar town square
in 1857.

632
00:51:54,380 --> 00:51:57,860
Liszt was genuinely thrilled
by both the Faust story

633
00:51:57,860 --> 00:52:01,620
and by the radical ideas
about art and beauty
that Goethe had developed.

634
00:52:04,940 --> 00:52:08,980
Goethe believed that excellence
and good taste could unite

635
00:52:08,980 --> 00:52:13,380
the polarities of classicism
with its concern for balance
and proportion

636
00:52:13,380 --> 00:52:17,660
and the wilder philosophy
of romanticism, which put
the individual and his concerns

637
00:52:17,660 --> 00:52:19,340
at the centre of the universe.

638
00:52:23,820 --> 00:52:28,260
Liszt assumed that his educated
audience were familiar
with both Goethe's Faust

639
00:52:28,260 --> 00:52:31,100
and with the philosophy behind it.

640
00:52:31,100 --> 00:52:34,180
His ambition for his symphonic
poetry was that it would convert

641
00:52:34,180 --> 00:52:38,380
the listener's existing
intellectual thoughts into
a visceral, emotional reaction.

642
00:52:44,540 --> 00:52:48,580
One of the best ways to look
at a Liszt symphonic poem

643
00:52:48,580 --> 00:52:53,060
is to compare it with that period,
you know, the silent film era

644
00:52:53,060 --> 00:52:56,860
where the pianists were
dished out with certain quotations

645
00:52:56,860 --> 00:53:00,180
from various pieces of music
that had moods and things.

646
00:53:00,180 --> 00:53:03,980
So you had, you know,
crisis or melancholy

647
00:53:03,980 --> 00:53:05,420
and you'd go like this...

648
00:53:05,420 --> 00:53:07,940
HE PLAYS DRAMATICALLY

649
00:53:07,940 --> 00:53:10,500
Or something sentimental
or pathetic...

650
00:53:10,500 --> 00:53:13,540
HE PLAYS EMOTIONALLY

651
00:53:16,140 --> 00:53:21,100
Just making that up, because Liszt
is using all of these types,

652
00:53:21,100 --> 00:53:23,500
putting them together
as a series of pictures.

653
00:53:38,340 --> 00:53:44,420
Each of the symphony's
three movements depicts one of
the drama's three key characters,

654
00:53:44,420 --> 00:53:46,460
starting with Faust himself.

655
00:53:46,460 --> 00:53:51,860
And Liszt plunges us straight into
the maelstrom of this unfortunate
soul's troubled, restless thoughts.

656
00:54:08,820 --> 00:54:13,020
The long, slow second movement is
a portrait of Gretchen, the heroine.

657
00:54:20,780 --> 00:54:24,660
Here, two sections of the orchestra,
the violins and the woodwind,

658
00:54:24,660 --> 00:54:31,140
interweave to evoke a simple girl
thinking about her lover whilst
plucking at the petals of a flower,

659
00:54:31,140 --> 00:54:32,740
he loves me, he loves me not.

660
00:54:53,900 --> 00:54:57,060
The third movement
represents Mephistopheles.

661
00:54:57,060 --> 00:55:00,140
Liszt doesn't give Mephistopheles
any original themes.

662
00:55:00,140 --> 00:55:03,220
Goethe maintained that evil
couldn't create anything,

663
00:55:03,220 --> 00:55:04,900
it could only destroy.

664
00:55:04,900 --> 00:55:09,540
And so Faust's themes from the first
movement are warped, mutilated,

665
00:55:09,540 --> 00:55:12,580
distorted by Mephistopheles' music,

666
00:55:12,580 --> 00:55:16,020
just as the hero himself
succumbed to the devil.

667
00:55:39,820 --> 00:55:44,260
This was difficult music,
sometimes violent and uncomfortable
to listen to

668
00:55:44,260 --> 00:55:47,740
and many would reject it
as unmusical.

669
00:55:47,740 --> 00:55:52,420
Liszt, who'd tasted success
and adulation as a young
piano superstar,

670
00:55:52,420 --> 00:55:55,820
now seemed happy to alienate
casual listeners if necessary.

671
00:55:59,740 --> 00:56:04,300
But his ability to portray
characters and their emotional
lives through musical motifs

672
00:56:04,300 --> 00:56:07,700
was to influence, profoundly,
many of his contemporaries.

673
00:56:07,700 --> 00:56:10,500
Richard Wagner visited Liszt
in Weimar.

674
00:56:10,500 --> 00:56:14,020
He called symphonic poetry
the music of the future,

675
00:56:14,020 --> 00:56:17,780
and freely admitted
that he'd borrowed heavily
from Liszt in his operas.

676
00:56:21,060 --> 00:56:24,740
Aside from his actual compositions,
Liszt's other great contribution

677
00:56:24,740 --> 00:56:31,820
to the history of the symphony is
his clever keyboard transcriptions
of music by Beethoven and Berlioz.

678
00:56:31,820 --> 00:56:36,100
In an age before recording, these
elegant versions of orchestral music

679
00:56:36,100 --> 00:56:39,460
that you could play at home
on your own piano were essential

680
00:56:39,460 --> 00:56:42,140
in the disseminating
and popularising of the symphony.

681
00:56:57,820 --> 00:57:03,980
By the middle of the 19th century,
the symphony was seen as the supreme
expression of a composer's art

682
00:57:03,980 --> 00:57:06,740
and its creators enshrined
as heroes of the age.

683
00:57:06,740 --> 00:57:11,220
Here in the Zentralfriedhof,
Vienna's main cemetery,

684
00:57:11,220 --> 00:57:15,300
two of our great symphonists
found their final resting place.

685
00:57:15,300 --> 00:57:18,820
Beethoven, who was moved here
some years after his death

686
00:57:18,820 --> 00:57:23,420
and Schubert, re-buried at the same
time as Beethoven and lying,

687
00:57:23,420 --> 00:57:28,060
as he wished, apparently, just a few
steps from his great predecessor.

688
00:57:33,980 --> 00:57:36,740
However, there was
a serious problem.

689
00:57:36,740 --> 00:57:40,540
Now that Liszt and Berlioz
had perfected the form's ability
to tell stories,

690
00:57:40,540 --> 00:57:43,340
if supported by a literary text,

691
00:57:43,340 --> 00:57:48,380
had the abstract, pure music model -
storytelling by instrumental
sounds alone,

692
00:57:48,380 --> 00:57:50,980
died along with Beethoven
and Schubert?

693
00:57:55,900 --> 00:57:58,980
But there were those who, while
admitting there was a problem,

694
00:57:58,980 --> 00:58:03,220
refused to accept that it was
insurmountable and pursued
a different path,

695
00:58:03,220 --> 00:58:07,260
a new step forward
in the history of the symphony.

696
00:58:11,140 --> 00:58:16,660
In the next episode,
we trace Johannes Brahms' journey
into the realm of pure music.

697
00:58:17,860 --> 00:58:22,700
To go deeper into the music and
unravel the secrets of the symphony,

698
00:58:22,700 --> 00:58:25,820
follow the links to
the Open University at:

699
00:58:46,940 --> 00:58:49,180
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

700
00:58:49,180 --> 00:58:51,300
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk