This work is one of Berlioz's most brilliant pieces, with an orchestral life and color all its own. The material is taken from his opera Benvenuto Cellini;[235] the checquered career of this artist having made an irresistible appeal to Berlioz's love of the unusual and the spectacular. The body of the work is based on the Italian national dance, the Saltarello; and with this rhythm as a steadying background Berlioz achieves a continuity sometimes lacking in his work. The mere thought of the sights, sounds and colors of that important event in the life of Rome would be enough to inflame his susceptible imagination, and so here we have Berlioz at his very best. The overture begins, allegro assai con fuoco, with a partial announcement of the saltarello theme by the violins and violas, freely imitated by the wood-wind instruments, e.g.
After a sudden prolonged silence and some crescendo trills the first periodic melody is introduced, sung by the English horn—the tune taken from an aria of Benvenuto in the first act. The melody is soon repeated in the dominant key by the violas and then, treated canonically, by the 'cellos and violins. The canon really tells and shows that Berlioz, as is often alleged, was not altogether lacking in polyphonic skill. The rhythm is now gradually quickened and leads to the main body of the work, in 6/8 time, based on the Italian folk-dance—the Saltarello which, as its name implies, is of a "skipping" nature. The music is freely developed from the two following themes; there is no second theme proper, e.g.
[[Listen]] [[MusicXML]]
[[Listen]] [[MusicXML]]
Toward the close there is a return to the introductory melody which is treated contrapuntally by the bassoons and other wind-instruments. The saltarello resumes its sway and is worked up to a fiery ending; especially brilliant are the closing chords scored for full brass with trills on the cornets.
Two of Berlioz's most poetically conceived descriptive pieces are the Menuet des Feux-Follets and the Ballet des Sylphes, incidental orchestral numbers from the Damnation of Faust; for they illustrate convincingly what one means by the claim that Berlioz thought in terms of orchestral color and suggestion. To give a musical picture of such airy and fantastic imaginings by the mere repetition of conventional formulae would obviously be of no avail. Berlioz's genius is equal to the situation; and as we listen to the music we can really see the flickering of the Will o' the Wisps and feel the graceful swaying of the Sylphs as they hover about the sleeping Faust. To suggest the Feux-Follets Berlioz ingeniously gives the theme to two piccolos in thirds, which are supported by a rich but subdued mass of wind instruments, horns and trumpets, e.g.