6 - Third Movement

Summary

Berlioz takes his protagonist to countryside that was surely inspired by the region of his birth in the Dauphiné: a plain, farmland (home to the quail whose call is, perhaps, imitated), and a distant prospect of mountains. The scene is prepared by a stylized ‘cattle-call’, known as ranz des vaches, played on another instrument rarely used up to this time in a symphony orchestra, the cor anglais (Berlioz did not risk ridicule by introducing an actual alphorn). The serene pastoral reverie that follows is disturbed by the idée fixe, arousing memories of the protagonist’s hopes and fears: could she love him? But now he is alone, and his isolation is emphasized when the ranz des vaches on cor anglais, formerly answered by an offstage oboe (another innovation!), is now heard amid the threat of distant thunder.