Question

Berlioz incorporated a number of playing techniques into the fifth movement for to create musical effects. List three of those techniques, the instruments used, and tell me what sound or effect was produced by them. Describe how those effects help to create a sense of the macabre for the listener?

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

Three of those techniques are:

1. Reveries– Passions: Rêveries – Passions

2. A Ball: Un bal

3. Scene in the Fields: Scène aux champs

4. March to the Scaffold: Marche au supplice

5. Dream of the Night of the Sabbath: Songe d’une nuit du sabbat

The musical effects help create a sense of macabre or bit of horror for the listener by the way it opens up different phases of the author’s life that was driven by what he called “the sickness of spirit” (“wave of passions”: le vague des passions) which took a toll on him after he saw a particular woman (the woman of his dreams) for the first time. Within the melody, the image of the woman keeps springing up in his mind ceaselessly until his spirit is thrown into confusion. Generally, the musical effects reveal the ceaseless thoughts of a gifted artist who has “poisoned himself with opium” in the “depths of despair” because of “hopeless love.”