Berlioz subtitled the work “Episode in the Lift of an Artist” and published the following program explaining the action of each movement in detail:

1. The work begins before the artist has encountered “the beloved one.” At the Allegro, “the loved one herself becomes a melody, an idée fixe (fixed idea, or a recurring melody) that he … hears everywhere.”
2. “He meets his beloved again during the tumult of a brilliant ball.”
3. “Finding himself in the country, he hears two shepherds piping in the distance…thoughts of her sooth his heart with unaccustomed calm – but what if she was deceiving him? – One of the shepherds takes up his simple tune again… The sun sets – distant thunder – solitude – silence.
4. “He poisons himself with opium. The dose of the narcotic plunges him into a sleep accompanied by horrible visions. He dreams he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned and led to the scaffold. At the end of the march, the idée fixe reappears, like the last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.”
5. “He sees himself in the midst of a frightful group of ghosts, sorcerers, and monsters, come together for his funeral. The beloved melody reappears…but it is now no more than a dance tune, mean, trivial, grotesque; it is she, coming to join the sabbath – A roar of joy at her arrival…Funeral knell, parody of the Dies Irae (from the requiem mass), sabbath round dance. The round and the Dies Irae combine.”