Jesus, Berlioz was a looker.

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE
by Hector Berlioz

• Rêveries - Passions (MP3)
• Un bal - Valse (MP3)
• Scène au champs (MP3)
• Marche au supplice (MP3)
• Sogne d'un nuit du Sabbat (MP3)

"Marche au supplice" (the fourth movement) is the coolest thing ever. Listen from the idée fixe (4min4sec) until the end after reading this, and you will jump out of your seat due to the COOL. Wikipedia:

The fourth movement... describes a dream, in which the artist is executed for killing the love of his life. It uses a grotesque version of the theme by Berlioz's extraordinary technique of orchestration, mixing string pizzicato, woodwind staccato, brass chords and a single loud stroke of percussion, forming a highly unusual series of tone colors. The scene ends with a single short fortissimo G-minor chord that represents the fatal blow: the dropping of the trap door, or perhaps the guillotine blade; the series of pizzicato notes following can be seen to represent the rolling of the severed head into the basket. Immediately prior to the musical depiction of the beheading, there is a brief, nostalgic recollection of the idée fixe in a solo clarinet, as though representing the last conscious thought of the executed man; after his death, the final nine bars of the movement contain a victorious series of tutti G major chords, seemingly intended to convey the cheering of the onlooking throng.

There is no question here. This guy was the man.

My final assignment in the Music Theory course I'm taking is to write a movement of a symphony by writing a story and using the music to develop a theme. I'm pretty sure my theme is going to be Alex Zapherson and myself being madly in love, but this is definitely still up for debate, since Alex usually tries to ignore me when I initiate flirtatious conversation with him in the hallway. Oh well.

In other news, I've been speaking in a Russian accent on and off for about thirty hours now.