What is the subtitle of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique?

Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique has the subtitle Episode in the Life of an Artist.

Berlioz gave the work its full French title, Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d’un artiste. The five-movement symphony presents an autobiographical program about an artist’s obsessive love, visions, and increasingly disturbing fantasies.

It premiered in Paris on 5 December 1830. A recurring melody called the idée fixe represents the beloved and returns in altered forms throughout the work. The unusual program and vivid orchestration made the piece a defining example of nineteenth-century program music.

The subtitle is sometimes shortened or translated in different ways, but “Episode in the Life of an Artist” is the standard English rendering. The symphony should not be confused with Berlioz’s later Harold in Italy, another orchestral work with a literary and pictorial concept.