Around 1833 – three years after Symphonie Fantastique – the virtuoso Niccolò Paganini had bought a Stradivarius viola, and said to Hector Berlioz there was no decent music for viola, and that Berlioz was the only man to be trusted with the job of composing something new.
The initial sketches Paganini rejected as not having enough for the viola solo. Berlioz was inspired by the poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:
My intention was to write a series of orchestral scenes, in which the solo viola would be involved as a more or less active participant while retaining its own character. By placing it among the poetic memories formed from my wanderings in the Abruzzi, I wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer in the manner of Byron’s Childe-Harold.
Hector Berlioz, “Harold in Italy”, Memoirs
He then took material from an unused overture called Rob Roy, to complete the work.
It is in four movements and can be regarded as a sort of symphony-concerto given that the solo part is not as virtuosic as other concerti. The viola represents Harold, with a repeating theme…
- Harold in the mountains (adagio – allegro)
- March of the pilgrims
- Sérénade (allegro assiai – allegretto)
- At the Orgy of the Brigans (allegro frenetico)
It is cored for double woodwind with four bassoons, four horns, two cornets, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, tambourines, harp and strings, so not a world away from Symphonie Fantastique.
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