Continuing with last month's theme of less-than-stellar works by master composers, we visit a truly strange, but important, work by Berlioz. Whenever I teach Symphonie fantastique in music appreciation classes, I go through the story before I play the music, partly because it is so modern, like something one would encounter on Page Six. I also mention that that work is not just opus 14, but de facto opus 14a, if not literally so. This helps underline that the hero of the story, unbeknownst even to many musicians, was given a name by Berlioz, though it was a very late in the process, indeed; frankly, it was done in retrospect. In none of the various programs for Symphonie fantastique does Berlioz mention him—he is simply the "artist"—but we learn that his name is Lélio because of the almost-never-performed sequel to Symphonie fantastique, the op 14b: Le retour à la vie, later called Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie. This return to life is a quite strange work indeed, and Berlioz does not help his own cause by insisting in the score that the entire orchestra be behind a curtain for the entire piece. A monodrama and melodrama, it ostensibly picks up right where Symphonie fantastique finishes, with the now-named hero waking from his drug-fueled nightmare with the exclamation, "Dieu! Je vis encore" (God! I'm still alive). Truth be told, the parts of the monologues which Berlioz wrote himself (which is most of it) don't get any more gripping than that, alas, and it is at times maudlin and silly. Indeed, sometimes it's just downright embarrassing.

With all this said, the work itself is a real mishmash of individual pieces, some of which are nice, some of which are instantly forgettable, and some of which are really tantalizing. Berlioz had three principal influences in his artistic life (I am not, of course, proposing that they are his only ones): Jean Paul, Beethoven, and Shakespeare. It is most obviously the latter two which come to the fore in both Symphonie fantastique and in Lélio. In this month's clip, we'll hear an excerpt from the last part of the monodrama, the quite excellent "Fantasia on Shakespeare's The Tempest," with its exultant and sighing cries of "Miranda" throughout, ending with a march displaying Berlioz's famous orchestration skills (Rákóczi comes to mind). I've also included the monologue which follows, which includes the last gasp of the idée fixe, heard throughout Lélio as much as it was heard throughout Symphonie fantastique.