The Grand Funeral and Triumphal Symphony (Grande symphonie funebre et triomphale) Op. 15 is the fourth and last symphony by Berlioz, first performed in 1840 in Paris.<br />The French goverment commissioned the work for the celebrations marking the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution.<br /><br />Berlioz had little sympathy for the regime, but the paid was very high so he took it.<br />Rather than taking his traditional approach, the work represents a reversion to earlier pre-Beethovenian style in the tradition of monumental French public ceremonial music, drawing from unfinished works.<br /><br />Originally scored for a wind band of 200 marching players marching, the work became a total succes. Berlioz revised the score in January 1842, adding an optional part for strings and a final chorus to a text by Antony Deschamps. Richard Wagner attended a performance of this new version at the Salle Vivienne on 1 February 1842.<br />On 5 February, he told Robert Schumann that he found passages in the last movement of Berlioz's symphony so "magnificent and sublime that they can never be surpassed.<br /><br />Composer: Hector Berlioz.<br />Performer: United States Marine Band.<br />MUSOPEN Song:<br />https://musopen.org/music/501/hector-berlioz/apotheose-from-grande-symphonie-funebre-et-triomphale-op-15/<br />Creative Commons License: Public Domain Mark 1.0<br />https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/<br />Public Domain Image:<br />http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlioz-1.jpg
