Today at the Proms - Prom 72 & 73

Continuing our daily coverage of what's on at The Proms 2019, Susan Omand has a quick look at the programme for Proms 72 & 73 : Symphonie fantastique ...



There may look like there are two proms tonight but it's really the same one twice, it's that popular. It does promise to be quite a spectacular event too, with a part-staged performance with theatrical design, lighting, movement and Berlioz’s own words about his music as well as the head-spinning, hallucinatory music of the Symphonie fantastique.



The work is subtitled An Episode in the Life of an Artist, in Five Parts and tells the story of "the artist's" infatuation with a young woman, whom he sees first in a daydream, then is haunted by at a grand ball, and gets paranoid in a pastoral scene, before convincing himself that his love has betrayed him and poisoning himself with opium, only to see her again attending his funeral in the company of witches, monsters and skeletons. So... not weird at all then.



Here's the second movement, A Ball, with its well known waltz melody that will make you say "oh it's that one" (well, I did.)







Here's the full programme for this evening's Prom which you can listen to live on Radio 3 or on the iPlayer 


Hector Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique(80 mins)(orchestral theatre staging)Image - Photo © Chris Christodoulou