Szymanowski and Symphonie fantastique

Berlioz was always in thrall to one craze or other. His Le corsaire Overture was inspired by a love of Byron, an attraction to piracy, and a failed affair. The result is a suitably colourful experience.

Composed in 1916, Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto is haunting, enigmatic and inspired by an ecstatic poem about a ‘rapturous conflagration’. And Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique is a wild ride through a drug-fuelled hallucination, triggered by thwarted love and full of astonishing orchestral effects.