Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie Fantastique’

A composer’s mind is an extraordinary place at the best of times; still, nothing in music quite matches the fabulous, opium-fuelled phantasmagoria that is Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Fired by unrequited desire, and sweeping from pastoral love-scenes to the foot of the guillotine itself, it continues to startle and amaze. Matthias Pintscher brings a composer’s insight, and teams up with one of the piano’s great explorers – Javier Perianes – to give a new shine to the sparkling exotica of Saint-Saëns’ delightful, unfairly neglected ‘Egyptian’ concerto. Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande will seem all the more serene by comparison - but dangerous passions smoulder beneath its exquisite melodies and shot-silk colours.

Prelude: 6.45pm in the Recital Room

Writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson introduces Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

There will be no coda after this concert.