Friday, July 29, 2005

Addendum!

Hector Berlioz was obsessed with an Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, for whom he wrote Symphony Fantastique. Which is a really freaky-deaky symphony, telling the story of an artist who is filled with ennui until he sees this woman who becomes the idee fixe for the rest of the symphony. Then the artist in question:
  • Goes to a ball, where he broods
  • Goes out to a field, where he broods, and decides she's betrayed him
  • Gets all hopped up on opium, and hallucinates that he's killed her (best movement EVER) and is condemned to be executed. His final thought is of her, which is interrupted by the orchestra playing the WHUMP chord to represent the guillotine falling, then the timpani rolls to represent the head rolling around, and meanwhile everybody's playing triumphant "BA DA! BA DA! Dadada!" stuff. It's great.
  • And if that's not enough, he imagines a witches' orgy, which is his funeral (the Dies Irae is in here), where the girl shows up and joins in.

How awesome is that?

And then you've got Obsession, the perfume or cologne, or whatever. Right? Get it? Get it? Anybody? Damn.

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