(Continued)
The artist in whose life this symphony describes an episode is, of course, Berlioz himself. He himself left a description of what his music tells us here-the dreams of an ardent spirit who has tried to poison himself with opium. The work is built on a ' motto ' theme, an idée fixe, which pursues the dreamer everywhere. The first movement describes all the bewildering tumult of heart of one who has fallen violently in love. The second is a ball where he met his beloved, and the third describes a summer evening in the country. In the fourth he dreams that he has murdered his beloved, and is marched to the scaffold, and the fifth is a very orgy of terror. The idée fixe, whose changed shapes have a large share in these different scenes, is first heard at the opening of the main (allegro) part of the first movement, after the slow (largo) introduction.