Symfonie fantastique
Love and heartbreak as musical inspiration: from Saint-Saëns’ romance to Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, which ends in a sublime nightmare.
“Love makes the world go round,” says an old French proverb. A love song inspired Saint-Saëns to compose his Fifth Piano Concerto. But it is unrequited love that truly gives rise to great music. Rejected by the woman of his dreams, Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique—music that blossoms like a budding romance, only to end in a sublime nightmare. Long live heartbreak.
Programme & performers
Takemitsu
How Slow the Wind
Saint-Saëns
Fifth Piano Concerto ‘Egyptian’
Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique


the source of great music.

I watched one of the most charismatic conductors I’ve seen all year
