Conducting Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

One of the orchestral conductor's main responsibilities is to correctly reflect the intention and spirit of composers of the past;the conductor's role in the interpretation of the symphony also undoubtedly occupies a very important historical position.A conductor's score annotations reveal many aspects of their music study;reflecting their analysis of the music,musical ideas and interpretations,performance practices and rehearsal issues.Therefore,the annotated scores of world-famous conductors are a valuable research resource for conducting students.LouisHector Berlioz(1803-1869)and Leonard Bernstein(1918-1990)were not only outstanding conductors and composers of their time,but also had other striking similarities;they were both charismatic,hopeless romantics,and had a huge sense of drama.This study takes Berlioz's masterpiece "Symphonie Fantastique” as an example,and by analysing Bernstein's annotated full scores available from the Leon Levy Digital Archive of the New York Philharmonic,provides an overview of Bernstein's annotation methods,while focusing on a critical analysis of Bernstein's editorial and interpretative annotations.The study finds that while some of Bernstein's annotations are reasonable,some run contrary to Berlioz's intentions.This study also investigates this conflict of ideology.