This month, I’m excited to join the classical music world in paying tribute to French romantic composer Hector Berlioz on the 150th anniversary of his death.
What I find most fascinating about Berlioz’s music is his sense of instrumental color. More than any of his contemporaries, Berlioz was attuned to the full range of sounds an orchestra could produce, and he had a keen interest in the development of new instruments. But Berlioz was more than just an orchestrator; he was also one of the most literate composers of his day. His juicy memoirs read like a novel, while his compositions frequently evoke the plays of Shakespeare or Goethe, the heroes of the romantic age.
My February 8th show features some of my favorite Berlioz works, including his instrumental take on a famous speech from Romeo and Juliet, his choral fantasy on The Tempest, and the climax from his unstageable operatic adaptation of Faust. I hope you’ll tune in and spend an hour with me in the unique sound world of Hector Berlioz.
Classical Tulsa airs Fridays at noon on 88.7 KWTU HD1.
