Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado

Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique is innovative, evocative and beautifully romantic. Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado knows how to bring Berlioz' dream world credibly to life like no other.

Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique
Conductor Leonard Bernstein called Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique "the first psychedelic symphony in history, the first musical description of an opium trip. He has a point: this music takes the listener into the composer's musing inner world as well as into a sumptuous ball and a "dream of a witches' sabbath. The symphony is revolutionarily innovative: it is the first 'program music' - music with a story and it was the first music with an idée fixe, the forerunner of Wagner's Leitmotiv. In a visual and beautifully romantic style, we hear how a young composer falls in love with a beautiful woman. After a lavish party, he loses himself in opium, followed by hallucinatory scenes full of witches, devil dancing and death bells.

Pablo Heras-Casado
Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado has had an unusually varied career: before breaking through as one of the great conducting talents of his generation, he worked as an actor and composer for contemporary dance groups. He also has a very broad outlook as a conductor: he is seasoned in the great symphonic and operatic repertoire but also in historically informed performances and contemporary scores. That he is very successful in this is evidenced by the awards he has to his credit: the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, two Diapasons d'Or, and a Latin Grammy. But above all, his exceptional talent is evident from the long-standing relationships he maintains with prestigious orchestras and festivals, including the Verbier Festival, BBC Proms and Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.