Symphonie Fantastique
Sunday, May 21, 2023 (Note: this is a change from our original date of 5/14)
Roseville Lutheran Church
1215 Roselawn Avenue West, Roseville, MN
William Schrickel, conductor
Roque Cordero — Adagio Trágico for String Orchestra (Twin Cities Premiere)
Hector Berlioz — Symphonie Fantastique
Panamanian composer Roque Cordero studied with Ernst Krenek at Hamline University from 1943-1947. Hector Berlioz composed his Symphonie Fantastique, which he subtitled Episode in the Life of an Artist, in Paris in 1830. The work makes use of a recurring theme, an idée fixe, that represents the woman who is the object of “the artist’s” opium-addled, all-consuming, and unrequited love. The theme variously depicts the woman when she is first viewed by the artist, when he sees her again waltzing at a ball, when his thoughts turn to her during a pastoral outing in the country, when she shows up to gloat while watching the artist’s public beheading at the guillotine, and finally when she is transformed into a hellish cackling shrew in the middle of a demonic Witches’ Sabbath. Join us as the MSO and William Schrickel bring down the curtain on the orchestra’s 40th Anniversary Season with Berlioz’ shocking, virtuosic tour de force.
Click here to view and print or download the MSO May Concert Flyer.