Charles Auguste de Bériot (20 February 18028 April 1870) was a Belgian violinist, artist and composer.
Biography
Charles de Bériot was born in 1802 in
Leuven
Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
(then under French rule) into a noble family but was orphaned at the age of nine. He was given custody of his music teacher and friend of his father, Jean-François Tiby (1772-1844). De Bériot began studying violin with Tiby, who trained him in the French style as exemplified by
Giovanni Battista Viotti
Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italia ...
. In 1811 he performed for the first time in public, playing a concerto by Viotti.
François-Joseph Fétis
François-Joseph Fétis (; 25 March 1784 – 26 March 1871) was a Belgian musicologist, composer, teacher, and one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century. His enormous compilation of biographical data in the ''Biographie univers ...
says that Tiby sent de Bériot to Paris at the age of 12 (1814), however de Bériot's own correspondence confirms that he only arrived in Paris in 1821. This mistake is attributed to the advanced age at which Fétis wrote his final biographical note on de Bériot. While in Paris, de Bériot studied briefly at the
Paris Conservatory
The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...
under
Pierre Baillot
Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot (1 October 1771 – 15 September 1842) was a French violinist and composer born in Passy. He studied the violin under Giovanni Battista Viotti and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris together with Pierre R ...
and played for
Rodolphe Kreutzer
Rodolphe Kreutzer (15 November 1766 – 6 January 1831) was a French violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer of forty French operas, including '' La mort d'Abel'' (1810).
He is probably best known as the dedicatee of Beethoven's Violin S ...
and Viotti. The latter encouraged de Bériot to "..listen a lot...and take what seems good to you, be like the bees and you will create a genre..."
After being refused a subsidy by
William I of the Netherlands
William I (Willem Frederik, Prince of Orange-Nassau; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was a Prince of Orange, the King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
He was the son of the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, who we ...
, he returned briefly to Belgium in 1822. The following year he returned to Paris where he taught and performed. In 1824 he made a concert tour in England and was named violinist to
Charles X
Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Loui ...
of France in 1826 and in 1827, solo violinist at the court of William I of the Netherlands.
De Bériot and Niccolo Paganini's careers ran parallel for many years even though de Bériot was 20 years younger than Paganini. In much of northern Europe the two virtuoso's playing styles were often compared, including in a small publication which appeared in 1831.
De Bériot lived with the opera singer
Maria Malibran
Maria Felicia Malibran (24 March 1808 – 23 September 1836) was a Spanish singer who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality ...
and had a child (
Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot
Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot (12 February 183322 October 1914) was a French pianist, teacher and composer.
He was born in Paris in 1833, the son of the violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot and his then common-law wife, the famed soprano Maria Mal ...
, a piano professor who taught
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
,
Ricardo Viñes
Ricardo Viñes y Roda (, ca, Ricard Viñes i Roda, ; 5 February 1875 – 29 April 1943) was a Spanish pianist. He gave the premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Albéniz. He was the piano teacher of the composer Francis Pou ...
,
Enrique Granados
Pantaleón Enrique Joaquín Granados y Campiña (27 July 1867 – 24 March 1916), commonly known as Enric Granados in Catalan or Enrique Granados in Spanish, was a composer of classical music, and concert pianist from Catalonia, Spain. ...
and others) with her in 1833. They were married in 1836 when Malibran obtained an annulment of her previous marriage.
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
wrote an aria accompanied by a solo violin especially for the couple. However, Malibran died the same year from injuries sustained in a fall from a horse.
After Malibran's death, de Bériot lived in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
and did not return to performance until 1838. In 1840 in Vienna he married Marie Huber, daughter of a local magistrate.
In 1842,
Pierre Baillot
Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot (1 October 1771 – 15 September 1842) was a French violinist and composer born in Passy. He studied the violin under Giovanni Battista Viotti and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris together with Pierre R ...
died in Paris at the age of 71, and his position as instructor at the
Paris Conservatoire
The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...
was offered to de Bériot. He rejected the offer, however, and in 1843 became chief violin instructor at the Brussels Conservatory where he established the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. On account of failing eyesight he retired in 1852, and in 1858 became totally blind.
Paralysis of the left arm ended his career in 1866. Surgeons amputated his left arm to relieve pain. Among his students were
Hubert Léonard
Hubert Léonard (7 April 1819 – 6 May 1890) was a famous Belgian violinist, born in Liège. His earliest preparatory training was given by a prominent teacher of the time, , after which he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1836. There he stu ...
,
Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps ( 17 February 18206 June 1881) was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th ce ...
and
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (8 June 18128 October 1865) was a Moravian-Jewish violinist, violist and composer. He was seen as the outstanding violinist of his time and one of Niccolò Paganini's greatest successors. He contributed to polyphonic playin ...
.
Compositions
De Bériot composed a great amount of violin music including ten concertos. Although these are now rarely heard, his pedagogical compositions are still of use for violin students. In style, however, he was greatly influenced by the works of
Rudolphe Kreutzer
Rodolphe Kreutzer (15 November 1766 – 6 January 1831) was a French violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer of forty French operas, including '' La mort d'Abel'' (1810).
He is probably best known as the dedicatee of Beethoven's Violin S ...
.
De Bériot's pioneering violin technique and Romantic style of composition make his concertos and etudes an important stepping stone for the serious violin student wishing to gain a firm foundation before studying the major concertos of the Romantic era. His most popular concertos are No. 9 in A minor Op. 104 and No. 7 in G major Op. 76.
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that hav ...
released a recording of Scene de Ballet, Op. 100 on his album, "
Concertos from My Childhood
''Concertos from My Childhood'' is a collection of famous student concertos, performed by Itzhak Perlman. They are all important pieces in violin pedagogy for beginning to intermediate students. The orchestra is from New York's Juilliard School, ...
". This recording features the
Juilliard
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. Barbara Barber also released a recordings and sheet music with piano accompaniment of the first movement of de Beriot's Concerto No. 9 in A minor Op. 104 and Scene de Ballet, Op. 100 with her series, "Solos for Young Violinists".
Schirmer publishes his Violin Method Op. 102 and His "First 30 Concert Studies" Op. 123. Peters publishes the famous encore piece for violin and orchestra (in a reduced format for violin and piano) "Scene de Ballet" Op.100.
Honours
* 1845: Member of the
Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, sometimes referred to as ') is the independent learned society of science and arts of the French Comm ...