12/06/2026
❤️🔥 You may recognise Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as the sinister opening to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”, but do you know what it’s about? The tea is piping hot.
Symphonie fantastique is a vivid, hallucinatory drama, inspired by heartbreak and fuelled by o***m.
Composed by a young Hector Berlioz in 1830, it was marked as a musical revolution, daring in its originality, scale, imagination, and mastery of the macabre.
Berlioz’s muse for the piece was Harriet Smithson, a Shakespearean actress who became his unrequited love after he saw her play Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His work, Symphonie fantastique, tells the tale of a gifted artist who, in the depths of despair, poisons himself with o***m. What unfolds is a musical ride through his drug-fuelled hallucinations, including a march to the scaffold and a satanic dream. It’s utterly excellent; it’s also a lot.
“A lot” could be described as the way in which Berlioz pursued Smithson…years of obsession, love letters, and a symphony, all leading to continuous rejection. Until 1832, when she heard his revised version at a concert. She finally agreed to meet with him, and a year later, they were husband and wife.
Hear the story come to life at our Lamb & Hayward Masterworks: de Castro-Robinson, Mahler, Berlioz on 1 August 2026. Book now at https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2026/cso-lamb-hayward-masterworks/christchurch.
