Contents
1 Biography
1.1 Early years 1.2 Student life
1.2.1 Paris 1.2.2 Italy
1.3 Decade of productivity 1.4 Mid-life
1.4.1 Les Troyens
1.5 Later years
2 Death
2.1 Last Words
3 Features
3.1 Religious views
4 As a conductor 5 Legacy 6 Influences
6.1 Literature
6.1.1 Shakespeare 6.1.2 Faust 6.1.3 The Romantics
6.2 Music
6.2.1 Beethoven 6.2.2 Other composers
7 Works
7.1 Musical works 7.2 Literary works
8 References 9 External links
Biography[edit]
Early years[edit]
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was born at 5 p.m. on 11 December 1803 at No. 83
rue nationale, the family home in the French commune of La
Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, near Grenoble.[4]
Three days later, he was baptised in the chapel of the Church of
Saint-André. His father, Louis Berlioz, a respected provincial
physician and scholar who is widely credited for first experimenting
with and recording the use of acupuncture in Europe,[5] was
responsible for much of the young Berlioz's education.[6] Louis was an
agnostic, with a liberal outlook; his mother, Marie-Antoinette, was a
devout Roman Catholic.[7] He had five siblings in all, three of whom
did not survive to adulthood.[8] The other two, Nanci and Adèle,
remained close to Berlioz throughout his life.[9]
Berlioz was not a child prodigy, unlike some other famous composers of
the time; he began studying music at age 12, writing small
compositions and arrangements. As a result of his father's
discouragement, he never learned to play the piano, a peculiarity he
later described as both beneficial and detrimental.[10] He became
proficient at guitar, flageolet and flute.[11][12] He learned harmony
from textbooks alone—he was not formally trained.[11][12] The
majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber
pieces.[12][13]
While yet at age twelve, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced
his first passion for a woman, an 18-year-old next-door neighbour
named Estelle Fornier (née Dubœuf).[14][15] Berlioz appears to have
been innately Romantic, this characteristic manifesting itself in his
love affairs, adoration of great romantic literature, as well as
Shakespeare and Beethoven,[16] and his weeping at passages by
Virgil[11] (by age twelve he had learned to read
Virgil
Virgil in
Latin
Latin and
translate it into French under his father's tutelage).
Student life[edit]
Paris[edit]
Drawing of
Harriet Smithson
Harriet Smithson as
Ophelia
Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet
In March 1821, Berlioz left high school in Grenoble, and in late
September, at age 18, he was sent to Paris to study medicine,[17][18]
a field for which he had no interest and, later, outright disgust
after viewing a human corpse being dissected.[14][17] (He gives a
colorful account in his Mémoires.)[19] He began to take advantage of
the institutions to which he now had access in the city, including his
first visit to the Paris Opéra, where he saw
Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride by
Christoph Willibald Gluck, a composer whom he came to admire above
all, alongside Ludwig van Beethoven.
He also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, seeking out
scores of Gluck's operas and making personal copies of parts of them.
He recalled in his Mémoires his first encounter with Luigi Cherubini,
the Conservatoire's then music director. Cherubini attempted to throw
the impetuous Berlioz out of the library since he was not a formal
music student at that time.[20][21] Berlioz also heard two operas by
Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their
friendship, and whom he later championed when working as a critic.
From then on, he devoted himself to composition. He was encouraged in
his endeavors by Jean-François Le Sueur, director of the Royal Chapel
and professor at the Conservatoire. In 1823, he wrote his first
article—a letter to the journal Le corsaire defending Spontini's La
vestale. By now he had composed several works including Estelle et
Némorin and Le passage de la mer Rouge (The Crossing of the Red
Sea) – both now lost;– the latter of which convinced Le Sueur
to take Berlioz on as one of his private pupils.[14]
Despite his parents' disapproval,[16] in 1824 he formally abandoned
his medical studies[17] to pursue a career in music. He composed the
Messe solennelle. This work was rehearsed and revised after the
rehearsal but not performed until the following year. Berlioz later
claimed to have burnt the score,[22] but it was re-discovered in
1991.[23][24] Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the
opera Les francs-juges, which was completed the following year but
went unperformed. The work survives only in fragments;[25] the
overture has been much recorded and is sometimes played in concert.
In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire[18] to study composition
under
Jean-François Le Sueur and Anton Reicha. He also submitted a
fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round.
Winning the prize would become an obsession until he finally won it in
1830, submitting a new cantata every year until he succeeded at his
fourth attempt. The reason for this interest in the prize was not just
academic recognition. The prize included a five-year pension[26] –
much needed income for the struggling composer. In 1827 he composed
the Waverley overture after Walter Scott's[18] Waverley novels. He
also began working as a chorus singer at a vaudeville theatre to
contribute towards an income.[15][17] On 11 September of that year, he
attended a production by a traveling English theatre company at the
Odéon
Odéon theatre with the Irish-born actress
Harriet Smithson
Harriet Smithson playing
Ophelia
Ophelia and Juliet in the Shakespeare plays
Hamlet
Hamlet and Romeo and
Juliet. He immediately became infatuated with both actress[16] and
playwright.[18] Prone to violent impulses, Berlioz began flooding
Smithson's hotel room with love letters which both confused and
terrified her. His advances led nowhere.[17]
In 1828 Berlioz heard Beethoven's third and fifth symphonies performed
at the Paris Conservatoire – an experience that he found
overwhelming.[27] He also read Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe's Faust
Goethe's Faust for
the first time (in French translation), which would become the
inspiration for Huit scènes de Faust (his Opus 1), much later
re-developed as La damnation de Faust. He also came into contact with
Beethoven's string quartets[28] and piano sonatas, and recognised the
importance of these immediately. He began to study English so that he
could read Shakespeare. Around the same time, he also started writing
musical criticism.[17]
He began and finished composition of the
Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie fantastique in
1830, a work which would bring Berlioz much fame and notoriety. He
entered into a relationship with – and subsequently became
engaged to – Marie Moke, despite the symphony being inspired by
Berlioz's obsession with Harriet Smithson. As his fourth cantata for
submittal to the
Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome neared completion, the July Revolution
began. "I was finishing my cantata when the revolution broke out," he
recorded in his Mémoires. "I dashed off the final pages of my
orchestral score to the sound of stray bullets coming over the roofs
and pattering on the wall outside my window. On the 29th I had
finished, and was free to go out and roam about Paris till morning,
pistol in hand."[29] He finally won the prize[30][31] with the cantata
Sardanapale. He also arranged the French national anthem La
Marseillaise and composed an overture to Shakespeare's The Tempest,
which was the first of his pieces to play at the Paris Opéra. An hour
before the performance, a sudden storm created the worst rain in Paris
in 50 years, meaning the performance was almost deserted.[32] Berlioz
met
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt who was also attending the concert. This proved to be
the beginning of a long friendship. Liszt would later transcribe the
entire
Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie fantastique for piano to enable more people to hear
it.
Italy[edit]
Lithograph of Berlioz by August Prinzhofer, Vienna, 1845. Berlioz considered this to be a good likeness.
On 30 December 1831, Berlioz left France for Rome, prompted by a
clause in the
Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome which required winners to spend two years
studying there. Although none of his major works were actually written
in Italy, his travels and experiences there would later influence and
inspire much of his music. This is most evident in the thematic
aspects of his music, particularly
Harold en Italie
Harold en Italie (1834), a work
inspired by Lord Byron's Childe Harold. Berlioz later recalled that
his "intention was to write a series of orchestral scenes, in which
the solo viola would be involved as a more or less active participant
[with the orchestra] while retaining its own character. By placing it
among the poetic memories formed from my wanderings in Abruzzi, I
wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer in the manner of
Byron's Childe-Harold."[33]
While in Rome, he stayed at the French Academy in the Villa Medici. He
found the city distasteful, writing, "Rome is the most stupid and
prosaic city I know; it is no place for anyone with head or
heart."[11] He therefore made an effort to leave the city as often as
possible, making frequent trips into the surrounding country. During
one of these trips, while Berlioz enjoyed an afternoon of sailing, he
encountered a group of Carbonari. These were members of a secret
society of Italian patriots based in France with the aim of creating a
unified Italy.[34]
During his stay in Italy, he received a letter from the mother of his
fiancée, Camille Moke, informing him that she had called off their
engagement. Instead her daughter was to marry
Camille Pleyel (son of
Ignaz Pleyel), a rich piano manufacturer. Enraged, Berlioz decided to
return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée, and her
mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan,
going so far as to purchase a dress, wig and hat with a veil (with
which he was to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to
their home).[35] He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols from
the Academy to kill them with, saving a single shot for himself.[35]
Planning out his action with great care, Berlioz purchased phials of
strychnine and laudanum[35] to use as poisons in the event of a pistol
jamming.
Despite this careful planning, Berlioz failed to carry the plot
through. By the time he had reached Genoa, he "left his disguise in
the side pocket of the carriage". After arriving in
Nice
Nice (at that
time, part of Italy), he reconsidered the entire plan, deciding it to
be inappropriate and foolish.[35] He sent a letter to the Academy in
Rome, requesting that he be allowed to return. This request was
accepted,[15] and he prepared for his trip back.
Before returning to Rome, Berlioz composed his overtures to King Lear
in
Nice
Nice and Rob Roy,[12] and began work on a sequel to the Symphonie
fantastique, Le retour à la vie (The Return to Life),[36] renamed
Lélio
Lélio in 1855.
Upon his return to Rome, Berlioz posed for a portrait painting by
Émile Signol
_-_Dagobert_Ier_roi_d'Austrasie_de_Neustrie_et_de_Bourgogne_(mort_en_638).jpg/440px-Emile_Signol_(1804-1892)_-_Dagobert_Ier_roi_d'Austrasie_de_Neustrie_et_de_Bourgogne_(mort_en_638).jpg)
Émile Signol (completed in April 1832), which Berlioz did not
consider to be a good likeness of himself.[37]
Berlioz continued to travel throughout his stay in Italy. He visited
Pompeii, Naples, Milan, Tivoli, Florence,
Turin
Turin and Genoa. Italy was
important in providing Berlioz with experiences that would be
impossible in France. At times, it was as if he himself was actually
experiencing the Romantic tales of Byron in person; consorting with
brigands, corsairs, and peasants.[11] He returned to Paris in November
1832.
Decade of productivity[edit]
Between 1830 and 1847, Berlioz wrote many of his most popular and
enduring works.[24] The foremost of these are the Symphonie
fantastique (1830),
Harold en Italie
Harold en Italie (1834), the Grande messe des
morts (Requiem) (1837) and Roméo et Juliette (1839).
Painting of a young Berlioz by Émile Signol, 1832.
On Berlioz's return to Paris, a concert including Symphonie
fantastique (which had been extensively revised in Italy)[38] and Le
retour à la vie was performed, with Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas,
Heinrich Heine, Niccolò Paganini, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin,
George Sand, Alfred de Vigny, Théophile Gautier, Jules Janin, Harriet
Smithson and others in the audience. At this time, Berlioz also met
playwright
Ernest Legouvé
Ernest Legouvé who became a lifelong friend. A few days
after the performance, Berlioz and Harriet were finally introduced and
entered into a relationship. Despite Berlioz not understanding spoken
English and Harriet not knowing any French,[15] on 3 October 1833,
they got married in a civil ceremony at the British Embassy with Liszt
as one of the witnesses.[39] The following year their only child,
Louis Berlioz, was born – a source of initial disappointment,
anxiety and eventual pride to his father.[11] Unfortunately for
Berlioz, he was soon to discover that living under the same roof as
his beloved wife was far less appealing than worship from afar. Their
marriage turned out a disaster as both were prone to violent
personality clashes and outbursts of temper.
In 1834, virtuoso violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini
commissioned Berlioz to compose a viola concerto,[18] intending to
premiere it as soloist. This became the symphony for viola and
orchestra, Harold en Italie. Paganini changed his mind about playing
the piece himself when he saw the first sketches for the work; he
expressed misgivings over its outward lack of complexity.[citation
needed] The premiere of the piece was held later that year. After
initially rejecting the piece, Paganini, as Berlioz's Mémoires
recount, knelt before Berlioz in front of the orchestra after hearing
it for the first time and proclaimed him a genius and heir to
Beethoven.[40][41] The next day he sent Berlioz a gift of 20,000
francs,[15][39] the generosity of which left Berlioz
uncharacteristically lost for words.[42] Around this time, Berlioz
decided to conduct most of his own concerts, tired as he was of
conductors who did not understand his music. This decision launched
what was to become a lucrative and creatively fruitful career in
conducting music both by himself and by other leading composers.
Berlioz composed the opera
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini in 1836. He was to spend
much effort and money in the following decades trying to have it
performed successfully.
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini was premiered at the Paris
Opéra on 10 September, but was a failure due to a hostile
audience.[30][36] One of his most enduring pieces followed Benvenuto
Cellini—the Grande messe des morts, first performed at Les
Invalides[43] in December of that year.[44] Its gestation was
difficult; because it was a state-commissioned work[31][41] much
bureaucracy had to be endured. There was also opposition from Luigi
Cherubini, who was at the time the music director of the Paris
Conservatoire. Cherubini felt that a government-sponsored commission
should naturally be offered to himself rather than the young Berlioz,
who was considered an eccentric.[14] Regardless of the animosity
between the two composers, Berlioz learned from and admired
Cherubini's music,[45] such as his Requiem.[46]
Thanks to the money Paganini had given him after hearing Harold,
Berlioz was able to pay off Harriet's and his own debts and suspend
his work as a critic. This allowed him to focus on writing the
"dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette for voices, chorus and
orchestra. Berlioz later identified the "love scene" from this choral
symphony, as he called it, as his favourite composition.[citation
needed] (He considered his Requiem his best work, however: "If I were
threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I
should crave mercy for the Messe des morts.")[47] It was a success
both at home and abroad, unlike later great vocal works such as La
damnation de Faust and Les Troyens, which were commercial failures.
Roméo et Juliette was premiered in a series of three concerts later
in 1839 to distinguished audiences, one including Richard Wagner.
The same year Roméo premiered, Berlioz was appointed Conservateur
Adjoint (Deputy Librarian) Paris Conservatoire Library. Berlioz
supported himself and his family by writing musical criticism for
Paris publications, primarily
Journal des débats
Journal des débats for over thirty
years, and also Gazette musicale and Le rénovateur.[12] While his
career as a critic and writer[18] provided him with a comfortable
income, and he had an obvious talent for writing, he came to
detest[24][30][48] the amount of time spent attending performances to
review, as it severely limited his free time to promote his own
works[18] and produce more compositions. Despite his prominent
position in musical criticism, he did not use his articles to promote
his own works.[36]
Mid-life[edit]
Painting of Berlioz by Gustave Courbet, 1850.
After the 1830s, Berlioz found it increasingly difficult to achieve
recognition for his music in France. As a result, he began to travel
to other countries more often. Between 1842 and 1863 he traveled to
Germany, England, Austria, Russia and elsewhere,[12][16] where he
conducted operas and orchestral music – both his own and
others'. During his lifetime, Berlioz was as famous a conductor as he
was as a composer.[48] He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
in 1839.
In 1840, the
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale was commissioned
to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the
July Revolution
July Revolution of 1830.
Owing to a strict deadline, it was performed only days after it was
completed. The performance was held in the open air on 28 July,
conducted by Berlioz himself, at the Place de la Bastille. The piece
was difficult to hear owing to the crowds and timpani of the drum
corps. This was later remedied by a concert performance a month later,
and Wagner voiced his approval of the work.[41] The following year he
began but later abandoned the composition of a new opera, La nonne
sanglante; some fragments survive.[4]
In 1841, Berlioz wrote recitatives for a production of Weber's Der
Freischütz at the
Paris Opéra
Paris Opéra and also orchestrated Weber's
Invitation to the Dance to add ballet music to it (he titled the
ballet L'Invitation à la valse,[49] and the original piano piece has
often been mistitled as a result). Later that year Berlioz finished
composing the song cycle
Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été for piano and voices (later
to be orchestrated). He also entered into an intimate relationship
with singer Marie Recio who would become his second wife.
In 1842, Berlioz embarked on a concert tour of Brussels, Belgium from
September to October. In December he began a tour in Germany which
continued until the middle of next year. Towns visited included
Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Weimar, Hechingen, Darmstadt,
Dresden, Brunswick, Hamburg,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt and Mannheim. In Leipzig he met
Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, the latter of whom had written
an enthusiastic article on the Symphonie fantastique. He also met
Heinrich Marschner
Heinrich Marschner in Hanover, Wagner in
Dresden
Dresden and Giacomo Meyerbeer
in Berlin.[4] Back in Paris, Berlioz began to compose the concert
overture Le carnaval romain, based on[18] music from Benvenuto
Cellini. The work was finished the following year and was premiered
shortly after. Nowadays it is among the most popular of his overtures.
In early 1844, Berlioz's highly influential[17][50] Treatise on
Instrumentation was published for the first time. At this time Berlioz
was producing several serialisations for music journals which would
eventually be collected into his Mémoires and Les soirées de
l’orchestre (Evenings with the Orchestra).[4] He took a recuperation
trip to
Nice
Nice late that year, during which he composed the concert
overture La tour de
Nice
Nice (The Tower of Nice), later to be revised and
renamed Le Corsaire.[4] With their marriage a failure, Berlioz and
Harriet Smithson
Harriet Smithson separated, the latter having become an alcoholic due
to the collapse of her acting career.[17] Berlioz moved in with a
mistress Marie Recio. He continued to provide for Harriet for the rest
of her life. He also met
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Glinka (whom he had initially met in
Italy and who remained a close friend), who was in Paris between 1844
and 1845 and persuaded Berlioz to embark on one of two tours of
Russia. Berlioz's joke "If the Emperor of Russia wants me, then I am
up for sale" was taken seriously.[39] The two tours of Russia (the
second in 1867) proved so financially successful[39] that they secured
Berlioz's finances despite the large amounts of money he was losing in
writing unsuccessful compositions. In 1845 he embarked on his first
large-scale concert tour of France. He also attended and wrote a
report on the inauguration of a statue to Beethoven in Bonn,[4] and
began composing La damnation de Faust, incorporating the earlier Huit
scènes de Faust. On his return to Paris, the recently completed La
damnation de Faust was premiered at the Opéra-Comique, but after two
performances, the run was discontinued and the work was a popular
failure[51] (perhaps owing to its halfway status between opera and
cantata), despite receiving generally favourable critical reviews.[52]
This left Berlioz heavily in debt[4] to the tune of 5000 to 6000
francs.[52] Becoming ever more disenchanted with his prospects in
France, he wrote:
Great success, great profit, great performances, etc. etc. ... France is becoming more and more philistine towards music, and the more I see of foreign lands the less I love my own. Art, in France, is dead; so I must go where it is still to be found. In England apparently there has been a real revolution in the musical consciousness of the nation in the last ten years. We shall see.[11]
In 1847, during a seven-month visit to England, he was appointed
conductor at the London Drury Lane Theatre[4] by its then-musical
director, the popular French musician Louis Antoine Jullien. He was
impressed with its quality when he first heard the orchestra perform
at a promenade concert.[53] In London he also learned that he knew far
more English than he had supposed, although still did not understand
half of what was said in conversation.[53] He began writing his
Mémoires. During his stay in England, the February Revolution broke
out in France. Berlioz arrived back in France in 1848, only to be
informed that his father had died shortly after his return. He went
back to his birthplace to mourn his father along with his sisters.[4]
Meanwhile, Harriet's health was declining due to alcohol abuse and she
suffered a series of strokes that left her an invalid. Berlioz paid
for four servants to look after her on a permanent basis and visited
her almost daily.[4] He began composition of his Te Deum.
In 1850 he became head librarian at the Paris Conservatoire, the only
official post he would ever hold, and a valuable source of income.[4]
During this year Berlioz also conducted an experiment on his many
vocal critics. He composed a work entitled the Shepherd's Farewell and
performed it in two concerts[54] under the guise of it being by a
composer named Pierre Ducré. This composer was of course a fictional
construct by Berlioz.[55] The trick worked, and the critics praised
the work by 'Ducré' and claimed it was an example that Berlioz would
do well to follow. "Berlioz could never do that!", he recounts in his
Mémoires, was one of the comments.[54] Berlioz later incorporated the
piece into La fuite en Egypte from L'enfance du Christ.[56] In 1852,
Liszt revived Benvenuto Cellini[36] in what was to become the "Weimar
version" of the opera, containing modifications made with the approval
of Berlioz.[57] The performances were the first since the disastrous
premiere of 1838. Berlioz travelled to London in the following year to
stage it at Theatre Royal,
Covent Garden
Covent Garden but withdrew it after one
performance owing to the hostile reception.[11] It was during this
visit that he witnessed a charity performance involving six thousand
five hundred children singing in St Paul's Cathedral.[58] Harriet
Smithson died in 1854.
L'enfance du Christ
L'enfance du Christ was completed later that
year and was well-received upon its premiere. Unusually for a late
Berlioz work, it appears to have remained popular long after his
death.[51] In October, Berlioz married Marie Recio. In a letter
written to his son, he said that having lived with her for so long, it
was his duty to do so. In early 1855 Le retour à la vie was revised
and renamed Lélio. Shortly afterwards, the Te Deum received its
premiere with Berlioz conducting. During a short visit to London,
Berlioz had a long conversation with Wagner over dinner. A second
edition of
Treatise on Instrumentation was also published, with a new
chapter detailing aspects of conducting.[4]
Photograph of Berlioz by Nadar, January 1857
Les Troyens[edit]
In 1856 Berlioz visited
Weimar
Weimar where he attended a performance of
Benvenuto Cellini, conducted by Liszt. His time with Liszt also
highlighted Berlioz's increasing lack of appreciation for Wagner's
music, much to Liszt's annoyance.[59]
Berlioz was convinced by Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein – with whom
he had corresponded for some time – that he should begin to
compose a new opera. This work would eventually become Les Troyens
(The Trojans),[4] a monumental grand opera with a libretto (which he
wrote himself) based on Books Two and Four of Virgil's Aeneid. The
idea of creating an opera based on the
Aeneid
Aeneid had already been in his
mind several years,[11] by the time
Sayn-Wittgenstein
Sayn-Wittgenstein had approached
him, and despite a long disillusionment, his creative flame seems to
have remained lit.
Les Troyens
Les Troyens proved to be a very personal work for
Berlioz, as it paid homage to his first literary love, whom he still
cherished – even after his discoveries of Shakespeare and
Goethe.[60] The opera was planned around five acts, similar in size to
the grand opera of Meyerbeer. It was composed with the
Paris Opéra
Paris Opéra in
mind, a most prestigious venue. Berlioz's chances of securing a
production in which his work would receive attention equal to its
merits were negligible from the start – a fact he must have
been aware of.[11][60] Despite these grim prospects, Berlioz saw the
work through to its completion in 1858.
The onset of an intestinal illness which would plague Berlioz for the
rest of his life had now become apparent to him.[4] During a visit to
Baden-Baden, Edouard Bénazet commissioned a new opera from Berlioz,
but due to the illness that opera was never written.[4] Two years
later, however, Berlioz instead began work on Béatrice et Bénédict,
which Bénazet accepted;[11] it was completed on 25 February 1862. As
for Les Troyens, in 1860 the
Théâtre Lyrique
Théâtre Lyrique in Paris had agreed to
stage it, only to reject it the following year. It was soon picked up
again by the Paris Opéra.[4]
Marie Recio, Berlioz's wife, died unexpectedly of a stroke at the age
of 48, on 13 June 1862. Berlioz soon met a young woman named
Amélie[61] at Montmartre Cemetery, and though she was only 24, they
developed a close relationship despite a 35-year age difference.[4]
The first performances of
Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice et Bénédict were held at
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden on 9 and 11 August. The work had had extensive rehearsals
for many months, and despite problems Berlioz found in making the
musicians play as delicately as he would like, and even discovering
that the orchestra pit was too small before the premiere, the work was
a success.[62] Berlioz later remarked that his conducting was much
improved owing to the considerable pain he was in on the day, allowing
him to be "emotionally detached" and "less excitable".[62] Béatrice
was sung by Madame Charton-Demeur. Both she and her husband were
staunch supporters of Berlioz's music, and she was present at
Berlioz's deathbed.
Les Troyens
Les Troyens was dropped by the
Paris Opéra
Paris Opéra with the excuse that it
was too expensive to stage; it was replaced by Wagner's
Tannhäuser.[15] The work was attacked by his opponents for its length
and demands, and memories of the failure of
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini at the
Opéra were still fresh.[11] It was then accepted by the new director
of the recently re-built Théâtre-Lyrique. In 1863 Berlioz published
his last signed article for the Journal des débats.[4] After
resigning, an act which should have raised his spirits given how much
he detested his job, his disillusionment became even stronger.[11] He
also busied himself judging entrants for the Prix de Rome –
arguing successfully for the eventual winner, the 21-year-old Jules
Massenet.[63] Amélie requested that they end their relationship,
which Berlioz did, to his despair.[4] The staging of
Les Troyens
Les Troyens was
fraught with difficulties when performed in a truncated form at the
Théâtre-Lyrique. It was eventually premiered on 4 November and ran
for 21 performances until 20 December. Madame Charton-Demeur sang the
role of Didon. It was first performed in Paris without cuts as
recently as 2003 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, conducted by John
Eliot Gardiner.[64]
Later years[edit]
In 1864 Berlioz was made Officier de la Légion d'honneur. On 22
August, Berlioz heard from a friend that Amélie, who had been
suffering from poor health, had died at the age of 26. A week later,
while walking in the Montmartre Cemetery, he discovered Amélie's
grave: she had been dead for six months.[4] By now, Berlioz was a
lonely man. Most of his family and friends had died, including his two
surviving sisters. Events like these became all too common in his
later life, as his continued isolation from the musical scene
increased as the focus shifted to Germany.[11] He wrote:
Last photograph of Berlioz, 1868
I am in my 61st year; past hopes, past illusions, past high thoughts and lofty conceptions. My son is almost always far away from me. I am alone. My contempt for the folly and baseness of mankind, my hatred of its atrocious cruelty, have never been so intense. And I say hourly to Death: 'When you will'. Why does he delay?[11]
Berlioz met Estelle Fornier – the object of his childhood
affections – in Lyon for the first time in 40 years, and began
a regular correspondence with her.[4] Berlioz soon realized that he
still longed for her, and eventually she had to inform him that as a
married woman there was no possibility that they could become closer
than friends.[65] By 1865, an initial printing of 1200 copies of his
Mémoires was completed. A few copies were distributed amongst his
friends, but the bulk were, slightly morbidly, stored in his office at
the Paris Conservatoire, to be sold upon his death.[11] He traveled to
Vienna in December 1866, where he was invited to conduct the first
complete performance of La damnation de Faust; the music was generally
successful, but was reviled by critics. In 1867 Berlioz's son Louis, a
merchant shipping captain, died[12] of yellow fever[17] in Havana.[15]
After learning this, Berlioz burnt a large number of documents and
other mementos which he had accumulated during his life,[4] keeping
only a conducting baton given to him by Mendelssohn and a guitar given
to him by Paganini.[15] He then wrote his will. The intestinal pains
had been gradually increasing, and had now spread to his stomach, and
whole days were passed in agony. At times he experienced spasms in the
street so intense that he could barely move.[66] Later that year he
embarked on his second concert tour of Russia, which would also be his
last of any kind. The tour was extremely lucrative for him, so much so
that Berlioz turned down an offer of 100,000 francs from American
Steinway to perform in New York.[39] In Saint Petersburg, Berlioz
experienced a special pleasure at performing with the "first-rate"
orchestra of the
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg Conservatory.[39] He returned to
Paris in 1868, exhausted, with his health damaged due to the Russian
winter.[15] He immediately traveled to
Nice
Nice to recuperate in the
Mediterranean climate, but slipped on some rocks by the sea shore,
possibly due to a stroke, and had to return to Paris, where he lived
as an invalid.[15] In August 1868, he made his last trip to Grenoble
where he lived with his sister and her family. Invited by Mayor Jean
Vendre during three days of festivities for the inauguration of a
statue of Napoleon, he presided at a music festival.[67]
Death[edit]
On 8 March 1869, Berlioz died at his Paris home, No.4 rue de Calais,
at 30 minutes past midday.[68] He was surrounded by friends at the
time. His funeral was held at the recently completed Église de la
Trinité[69] on 11 March, and he was buried in Montmartre Cemetery
with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him.
Hector Berlioz's grave in Montmartre Cemetery
Last Words[edit] There is some debate about Berlioz’s last words. His last words were reputed to be "Enfin, on va jouer ma musique"[48][70][71] ("At last, they are going to play my music"),[72] but three other possible alternatives and accounts include:
Bidding farewell to a nationalist Russian composer: "One thousand greetings to Balakirev."[73] Speaking to his dead wife, "Oh, Mère Recio, it is finished." After quoting from Macbeth's final soliloquy in Shakespeare's play of the same name: "'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' That is my signal."
Features[edit] Religious views[edit] Berlioz often stated in his letters that he was an agnostic.[74] In a letter which was written shortly before his death, he wrote in regard to religion, "I believe nothing."[75] The Catholic Encyclopedia, for its part, claims Berlioz as a Catholic, but appears to concede that he did not remain faithful to Catholicism.[76] As a conductor[edit]
Drawing of Berlioz conducting a choir by Gustave Doré, published in Journal pour rire, 27 June 1850
Berlioz's work as a conductor was highly influential[48] and brought
him fame across Europe.[12][16] He was considered by Charles Hallé,
Hans von Bülow
Hans von Bülow and others to be the greatest conductor of his
era.[77] Berlioz initially began conducting due to frustrations over
the inability of other conductors – more used to performing
older and simpler music – to master his advanced and
progressive works,[78] with their extended melodies[48] and rhythmic
complexity.[41] He began with more enthusiasm than mastery,[78] and
was not formally trained,[78] but through perseverance his skills
improved. He was also willing to take advice from others, as evidenced
by Spontini criticising his early use of large gestures while
conducting.[77] One year later, according to Hallé, his movements
were much more economical, enabling him to control more nuance in the
music.[77] His expert understanding of the way the sound of each
instrument interacts with each other (demonstrated in his Treatise on
Instrumentation) was attested to by the critic Louis Engel, who
mentions how Berlioz once noticed, amidst an orchestral tutti, a
minute pitch difference between two clarinets.[77] Engel offers an
explanation of Berlioz's ability to detect such things as in part due
to the sheer nervous energy he was experiencing during conducting.[77]
Despite this talent, Berlioz never held an employed position of
conductor during his lifetime, forced to be content with only guest
conducting. This was almost not the case. In late 1835, he was
approached by the management of a new concert hall in Paris, the
Gymnase Musical, and offered a position as their musical director.[79]
To Berlioz this was an ideal opportunity. Not only would it give him a
large annual salary (between 6000 and 12,000 francs),[79] but it would
also give him a platform from which to perform his own music, and the
music of fellow progressives. Berlioz accepted the offer, and signed
the contract for the position.[79] However, a new decree issued by the
revolutionary government forced him to change his mind. The obstacle
was one of the many restrictions that the revolutionary government had
placed on the running of musical establishments, forbidding the
performance of vocal music,[79] so they did not compete with the
influential
Paris Opéra
Paris Opéra (among other organisations). There were
passionate arguments and attempts to circumvent this restriction, but
they fell on deaf ears, and the Gymnase Musical became a dance hall
instead.[79] This left Berlioz dejected, and would prove to have been
a crucial cross-roads in his life, forcing him to work long hours as a
critic, which severely impaired his free time available for
composition.
From then on, he conducted at many different occasions, but mainly
during grand tours of various countries where he was paid handsomely
for visiting. In particular, towards the end of his life, he made a
lot of money by touring Russia twice, the final visit proving
extremely lucrative and also being the final conducting tour before
his death. This enabled him not only to perform his music to a wider
audience, but also to increase his influence across Europe –
for example, his orchestration was studied by many Russian composers.
Not just fellow hyper-Romantic Tchaikovsky, but also members of The
Five are indebted to these techniques, including Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov, but even Modest Mussorgsky – often portrayed
as uninterested in refined orchestration – revered Berlioz[80]
and died with a copy of Berlioz's
Treatise on Instrumentation on his
bed.[71] Similarly, his conducting technique as described by
contemporary sources appears to set the groundwork for the clarity and
precision favoured in the French School of conducting right up to the
present, exemplified by such figures as Pierre Monteux,
Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, Paul Paray, Charles Munch, André
Cluytens,
Pierre Boulez
.jpg/440px-Pierre_Boulez_(1968).jpg)
Pierre Boulez and Charles Dutoit.
Legacy[edit]
Pencil drawing of Berlioz, by Alphonse Legros, c.1860
Although neglected in France for much of the 19th century, the music
of Berlioz has often been cited as extremely influential in the
development of the symphonic form,[81] instrumentation,[82] and the
depiction in music of programmatic and literary ideas, features
central to musical Romanticism. He was considered extremely
progressive for his day, and he, Wagner, and Liszt have been called
the "Great Trinity of Progress" of 19th-century Romanticism.[citation
needed] Richard Pohl, the German critic in Schumann's musical journal,
the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, called Berlioz "the true
pathbreaker".[citation needed] Liszt was an enthusiastic performer and
supporter, and Wagner himself, after first expressing great
reservations about Berlioz, wrote to Liszt saying: "we, Liszt, Berlioz
and Wagner, are three equals, but we must take care not to say so to
him."[citation needed] As Wagner here implies, Berlioz himself was
indifferent to the idea of what was called "la musique du passé"
(music of the past), and clearly influenced both Liszt and Wagner (and
other forward-looking composers) although he increasingly began to
dislike many of their works. In the case of Liszt, he walked out on
him when being asked his opinion of some new music.[citation needed]
His opinion of Wagner's music is contained in an essay in his "The Art
of Music." Berlioz not only influenced Wagner through his
orchestration and breaking of conventional forms, but also in his use
of the idée fixe in the
Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie fantastique which foreshadows the
leitmotif.[83][84] Liszt came to see Berlioz not only as a composer to
support, but also to learn from, considering Berlioz an ally in his
aim for "A renewal of music through its closer union with poetry".[85]
During his centenary in 1903, while receiving attention from all
leading musical reference books, he was still not generally accepted
as being one of the great composers.[58] Some of his music was still
in neglect and his following was smaller than other, mainly German,
composers. Even half a century did not change much,[58] and it took
until the 1960s for the right questions to be asked about his work,
and for it to be viewed in a more balanced and sympathetic light. One
of the pivotal events in this fresh ignition of interest in the
composer was a performance of
Les Troyens
Les Troyens by
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík in 1957
at Covent Garden.[86] The music of Berlioz enjoyed a revival during
the 1960s and 1970s, due in large part to the efforts of French
conductor Charles Munch and of British conductor Sir Colin Davis, who
recorded his entire oeuvre, bringing to light a number of Berlioz's
lesser-known works. An unusual (but telling) example of the increase
of Berlioz's fame in the 1960s was an explosion of forged autographs,
manuscripts, and letters, evidently created to cater for a much
greater interest in the composer.[87] Davis's recording of Les Troyens
was the first near-complete recording of that work. The work, which
Berlioz never saw staged in its entirety during his life, is now a
part of the international repertoire,[64] if still something of a
rarity.
Les Troyens
Les Troyens was the first opera performed at the newly built
Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille in Paris on 17 March 1990 in a production claimed to
be complete, but lacking the ballets.[86]
In 2003, the bicentenary of Berlioz's birth, his achievements and
status were much more widely recognized,[88] and his music is now
viewed as both serious and original, rather than an eccentric
novelty.[58] Newspaper articles reported his colourful life with zeal,
very many festivals dedicated to the composer were held,[88][89]
readings of his books[90] and a one-hour French television dramatised
biography[91] all helped to create a lot of exposure to the composer's
life and music – far more than the previous centenary
anniversary. Numerous recording projects were begun or reissued,[92]
and broadcasts of his music increased.[89] Prominent Berlioz conductor
Colin Davis
.jpg/440px-Colin_Davis_(1967).jpg)
Colin Davis had already been in the process of recording much of
Berlioz's music on the LSO Live label, and has continued this project
to this date with a
L'enfance du Christ
L'enfance du Christ recording issued in 2007. The
internet was also a factor in the celebrations, with the comprehensive
hberlioz.com site (which has been online since 1997) being an easily
available source of information to anyone interested in the composer.
The 'Berlioz 2003' celebrations, organised by French academic
institutions,[88] also had a prominent website, listing events,
publications and gatherings[88] the domain of which has now lapsed.
There was also a site maintained by the Association nationale Hector
Berlioz.[93] A proposal was made to remove his remains to the
Panthéon, and while initially encouraged by French President Jacques
Chirac,[88][94] the proposal was rejected on the basis that Berlioz
was an anti-establishment figure and would have no interest in such a
ceremony, and that he was happy to be buried next to his two wives in
the location he has been in for almost 150 years.
Peter Cornelius counted Berlioz as one of the
Three Bs at the heights
of classical music alongside Bach and Beethoven. Commemorations of
Berlioz include the 2000-seat Opera Berlioz at the Corum arts centre
in Montpellier,
Berlioz Point in Antarctica and asteroid 69288
Berlioz.
For the opening of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining
(1980) by Stephen King, composer
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos re-interpreted the "Dies
Irae" section of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique using a Moog
Synthesizer.[95]
Influences[edit]
Hector Berlioz
Literature[edit]
Berlioz had a keen affection for literature, and many of his best
compositions are inspired by literary works. For Symphonie
fantastique, Berlioz was inspired in part by Thomas De Quincey's
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. For La damnation de Faust,
Berlioz drew on Goethe's Faust; for Harold en Italie, he drew on
Byron's Childe Harold; for Benvenuto Cellini, he drew on Cellini's own
autobiography. For Roméo et Juliette, Berlioz turned, of course, to
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. For his magnum opus, the monumental
opera Les Troyens, Berlioz turned to Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid. In
his last opera, the comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict, Berlioz
prepared a libretto based loosely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About
Nothing. His composition "Tristia" (for orchestra and chorus) drew its
inspiration from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Shakespeare[edit]
In 1827, Berlioz watched Irish actress
Harriet Smithson
Harriet Smithson at the Odéon
theatre playing
Ophelia
Ophelia and Juliet in
Hamlet
Hamlet and
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet by
William Shakespeare. This led to two intense infatuations. One was to
Smithson, which would result in a disastrous marriage. The other was
to Shakespeare, which would become a lifelong love.[18] He followed
the rest of the 1827 season closely, until the company moved to the
Salle Favart, and began learning the plays from pocket translations on
sale.[96] Though the performances were in English, of which Berlioz
knew virtually none, he was still able to grasp the grandeur and
sublimity of Shakespeare's language along with the richness of the
plays' dramatic design.[97]
The timing for these performances, not just for Berlioz' career but
also for French
Romanticism
Romanticism in general, could not have been more apt.
Berlioz was on the verge of producing his most Romantic works—as
were the writers Vigny, Dumas, Gautier and several others in
attendance that night. Shakespeare served as a model for French
Romanticism,[98] with Hugo extolling Shakespeare as a challenge to
French classicism and the model for the new Romantic theater.[97]
Shakespeare for Berlioz represented the summit of poetic utterance,
with the bard's veracity of dramatic expression and freedom from
formal constraints resounding in the composer's spirit. More
profoundly, Shakespeare became a source, by way of its dramatic truth,
for Berlioz' fundamental notion of expressive truth;[97] this was how
he could call
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet "the supreme drama of my life."[99] He
read from the plays constantly, often aloud for anyone who would
listen. He quoted from them for the rest of his life and would
associate any personal upheaval with its Shakespearian
counterpart.[100]
Berlioz was especially taken with Shakespeare's ability to pinpoint
the heart of a dramatic conflict and penetrating the secrets of
intense love. These secrets, Berlioz suggested in the text of Roméo
et Juliette the playwright took with him to heaven. Time and again
through the years, Berlioz would distill the favorite image of a play
and distill it into musical terms. Roméo et Juliette may have been
the first. Later came The Tempest, King Lear, a funeral march for the
final scene in Hamlet, the love scene for
Les Troyens
Les Troyens (which, some
claim, Berlioz took from The Merchant of Venice), and Béatrice and
Benedict.[101]
Faust[edit]
Berlioz discovered
Goethe's Faust
Goethe's Faust through Gérard de Nerval's
translation, published in December 1827. Its impact on Berlioz was,
again, profound and immediate, with the Faustian concept of man
striking several chords with the composer. He described Shakespeare
and Goethe in an 1828 letter as "the silent confidants of my
suffering; they hold the key to my life."[102] In any event,
Shakespearian tragedy and Faustian mystique became of one type in his
mind.[103]
The Romantics[edit]
Simultaneous with Berlioz's discovery of Shakespeare was his immersion
in the texts of true Romanticism. These included the works of Thomas
Moore, Sir
Walter Scott
Walter Scott and Lord Byron. All three inspired Berlioz to
compose works based on theirs. He also immersed himself in
Chateaubriand, E. T. A. Hoffmann,
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper and his
compatriots Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny,
Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset and Gérard
de Nerval. He later added Honoré de Balzac,
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert and
Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier to his list of favorites; he also used Gautier's
poems as texts for his song cycle Les nuits d'été.[104]
Perhaps as a result of this reading and seeing himself as an
archetypical tragic hero, Berlioz began to weave personal references
into his music. It may in fact have been his love for Shakespeare,
shared with the other young artist-heroes of 19th-century France, that
drew Berlioz firmly into the brotherhood of Romanticism.
Music[edit]
Beethoven[edit]
Berlioz writes in his Memoirs,
In an artist's life one thunderclap sometimes follows swiftly on another ... I had just had the successive revelations of Shakespeare and Weber. Now at another point on the horizon I saw the giant form of Beethoven rear up. The shock was almost as great as that of Shakespeare had been. Beethoven opened before me a new world of music, as Shakespeare had revealed a new universe of poetry.[105]
He was able to hear Beethoven's works through the performances of the
Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, an orchestra founded by
François Antoine Habeneck
François Antoine Habeneck and his colleagues to promote modern
orchestral music. The inaugural concert, on 9 March 1828, featured the
French premiere of the Eroica Symphony.[106] Despite protests from
French and Italian composers,[105] by the end of the first season
Habeneck and the orchestra had also performed the Fifth Symphony, the
Third Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto as well as other works.[107]
For Berlioz the experience of hearing the Eroica brought the last and
greatest revelation of the power of instrumental music as an
expressive language, along with the freedom of action with which it
could be expressive.[108] He understood at once that the symphony was
a dramatic form to an extent that he had not previously realized,[109]
and that in Beethoven he saw a way to the dramatic manner in which he
desired to compose.
Most tellingly, hearing the Eroica inspired Berlioz to widen his
horizons for the first time past opera and other vocal works and
consider the expressive power of purely instrumental music.[102] Prior
to this, he had defaulted to the dominant view of the Parisian music
establishment, as typified by Le Sueur: that the symphony was a lesser
form of composition that Mozart and Haydn had already taken as far as
possible.[110] Berlioz would go on to find instrumental music to be
far more penetrating in expression and articulation than vocal
setting.[102] "Now that I have heard that terrifying giant Beethoven",
he wrote, "I know exactly where my musical art stands; the question is
to take it from there and push it further."[111]
Other composers[edit]
Next to those of Beethoven, Berlioz showed deep reverence for the
works of Gluck, Mozart, Méhul, Weber and Spontini, as well as respect
for some of those of Rossini, Meyerbeer and Verdi.
The innovative use of chromaticism by his contemporaries and
associates Chopin and Wagner had little effect on Berlioz's style.
According to Oxford University Press, "Gottschalk took Paris by storm
when he made his 1845 concert debut. Frédérick Chopin predicted a
brilliant future for him, and
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz spoke of his 'exquisite
grace... brilliant originality... charming simplicity[112]...
thundering energy.'"There is little mention of his association with
Louis Moreau Gottschalk, whom Berlioz championed as a player speaking
of his thundering works and exquisite simplicity.[113]
During his second visit to Russia in 1867, Berlioz met composer and
pianist Anton Rubinstein, the director and founder of the Saint
Petersburg Conservatory (he left his position that August to live in
Germany). Other Russian composers he knew or at least had met include
Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Vladimir Stasov, and Tchaikovsky.
First page of original
Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie fantastique (1830) manuscript
Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9
Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Courtesy of Musopen
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Works[edit]
See also: List of compositions and literary works by Hector Berlioz
Musical works[edit]
The five movement Symphonie fantastique, partly due to its fame, is
considered by most to be Berlioz's most outstanding work,[114] and the
work had a considerable impact when first performed in 1830, 3 years
after the death of Beethoven and 2 years after that of
Schubert.[14][50] It is famous for its innovations in the form of the
programmatic symphony. The story behind this work relates to Berlioz
himself and can be considered somewhat autobiographical.[115]
In addition to the Symphonie fantastique, some other orchestral works
of Berlioz currently in the standard orchestral repertoire include his
"légende dramatique"
La damnation de Faust
La damnation de Faust and "symphonie dramatique"
Roméo et Juliette (both large-scale works for mixed voices and
orchestra), and his concertante symphony (for viola and orchestra)
Harold en Italie. Several concert overtures also remain enduringly
popular, such as Le Corsaire and Le Carnaval romain. Amongst his more
vocally oriented works, the song cycle
Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été and the
oratorio
L'enfance du Christ
L'enfance du Christ have retained enduring appeal, as have
the quasi-liturgical Te Deum and Grande messe des morts.
Berlioz's style is one of the most idiosyncratic of the 19th century.
The characteristics of his music do not always take immediate effect
and a familiarity is regarded as essential to its understanding.
Berlioz's claim to be an inspired and natural melodist is irrefutable.
Few of his melodies fall into regular phrase lengths, and when they
do, they sound uncharacteristic. But perhaps what is "characteristic"
of Berlioz's style is the way in which it cannot necessarily be tamped
down. For example, Berlioz found the regular balance of four- and
eight-bar phrases uncongenial. Sometimes his melodies expand to great
length, or fill an entire movement in one long arch. Much of his
melodic strength is built on small chromatic inflections.[116] The
unconventional music of Berlioz irritated the established concert and
opera[11] scene. Berlioz often had to arrange for his own performances
as well as pay for them himself. This took a heavy toll on him
financially[52] and emotionally. The nature of his large
works – sometimes involving hundreds of
performers[117] – made financial success difficult. His
journalistic abilities became essential for him to make a living and
he survived as a witty critic,[18] emphasizing the importance of drama
and expressiveness in musical entertainment. It was perhaps this
expense which prevented Berlioz from composing more opera than he did.
His talent in the genre is obvious, but opera is the most expensive of
all classical forms, and Berlioz in particular struggled to arrange
stagings of his operas, due in part to the unwillingness of
conservative Paris opera companies to perform his work.[30]
Literary works[edit]
While Berlioz is best known as a composer, he was also a prolific
writer, and supported himself for many years by writing musical
criticism, utilising a bold, vigorous style, at times imperious and
sarcastic. He wrote for many journals, including the Rénovateur,[118]
Journal des débats
Journal des débats and Gazette musicale.[119] He was active in the
Débats for over thirty years until submitting his last signed article
in 1863.[4] Almost from the founding, Berlioz was a key member of the
editorial board of the Gazette as well as a contributor, and acted as
editor on several occasions[120] while the owner was otherwise
engaged. Berlioz took full advantage of his times as editor, allowing
himself to increase his articles written on music history rather than
current events, evidenced by him publishing seven articles on Gluck in
the Gazette between June 1834 and January 1835.[120] An example of the
amount of work he produced is indicated in his producing over
one-hundred articles[120] for the Gazette between 1833 and 1837. This
is a conservative estimate, as not all of his submissions were
signed.[120] In 1835 alone, due to one of his many times of financial
difficulty, he wrote four articles for the Monde dramatique, twelve
for the Gazette, nineteen for the Débats and thirty-seven for the
Rénovateur.[121] These were not mere scribbles, but in-depth articles
and reviews with little duplication,[121] which took considerable time
to write.
Another noteworthy indicator of the importance Berlioz placed on
journalistic integrity and even-handedness were the journals which he
both did and did not write for.[which?] During the middle of the 1830s
the Gazette was considered an intellectual journal, strongly
supporting the progressive arts and
Romanticism
Romanticism in general, and
opposing anything which it considers as debasing this.[120]
Exemplified in its long-standing criticism of Henri Herz, and his
seemingly endless stream of variations on opera themes, but to its
credit, it also positively reviewed his music on occasion.[122] Its
writers included Alexandre Dumas,
Honoré de Balzac
_Detail.jpg/440px-Honoré_de_Balzac_(1842)_Detail.jpg)
Honoré de Balzac and George
Sand.[120] The Gazette wasn't even unanimous in its praise of
Berlioz's music, although it always recognised him as an important and
serious composer to be respected.[122] An example of another journal
of the same time is the Revue musicale, which thrived on personal
attacks, many against Berlioz himself from the pen of critic
François-Joseph Fétis.[123] At one point,
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann was
motivated to publish a detailed rebuttal of one of Fétis' attacks on
Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique[38] in his own Neue Zeitschrift für
Musik journal.[123] Fétis would later contribute to the debasement of
the reputation of the Gazette when his journal failed and was absorbed
by the Gazette, he found himself on the editorial board.[123]
The books which Berlioz has become acclaimed for were compiled from
his journal articles.[4] Les soirées de l’orchestre (Evenings with
the Orchestra) (1852), a scathing satire[124] of provincial musical
life in 19th century France, and the Treatise on Instrumentation, a
pedagogic work, were both serialised originally in the Gazette
musicale.[4] Many parts of the Mémoires (1870) were originally
published in the Journal des débats, as well as Le monde
illustré.[125] The Mémoires paint a magisterial (if biased) portrait
of the Romantic era through the eyes of one of its chief protagonists.
Evenings with the Orchestra is more overtly fictional than his other
two major books, but its basis in reality is its strength,[124] making
the stories it recounts all the funnier due to the ring of truth. W.
H. Auden praises it, saying "To succeed in [writing these tales], as
Berlioz most brilliantly does, requires a combination of qualities
which is very rare, the many-faceted curiosity of the dramatist with
the aggressively personal vision of the lyric poet."[126] The Treatise
established his reputation as a master of orchestration.[12] The work
was closely studied by
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler and
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss and served as
the foundation for a subsequent textbook by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,
who, as a music student, attended the concerts Berlioz conducted in
Moscow and Saint Petersburg.[71]
References[edit]
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Hector; see Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, p. 36.
^ "Classic FM". Classic FM. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Blas Matamoro – "Hector Berlioz: Un genio francés", essay
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^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, pp. 25–6
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, pp. 59–60
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, pp. 30–1
^ Barzun, Jacques (1982) [1956]. Berlioz and His Century: An
Introduction to the Age of
Romanticism
Romanticism (3rd ed.). University of
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^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, pp. 51
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^ "
La Marseillaise
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March 2010.
^ Berlioz/Cairns – Memoirs pp. 105–6
^ Memoirs, 225.
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, p. 442
^ a b c d Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, pp. 457–9
^ a b c d "NNDB.com". NNDB.com. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 1, p. 542
^ a b 6 November 2008 1:30PM by Kelly Wilson (6 November 2008). "Scott
D. Farquhar". Members.aol.com. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
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Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz on IMDb
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^ a b c d
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at Encyclopædia Britannica
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ISBN 0-14-028727-2
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^ a b Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 591
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^ a b Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 682
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 699
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^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 660+6 bottom caption
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 754
^ "The
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz Website - Berlioz in
Grenoble
Grenoble - 1868
visit".
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, pp. 772–3
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 779
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^ a b c "Scena.org". Scena.org. 10 December 2003. Retrieved 13 March
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^ "A great life" – via The Economist.
^
http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/composers-last-words/berlioz/.
Missing or empty title= (help)
^ David Cairns (2003). Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness, 1832–1869
(2 ed.). University of California Press. p. 136.
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most as an agnostic.
^ Boult, G. K. Life of Berlioz. 1903, p. 298.
^ "Hector Berlioz". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12 September
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give us an idea of what he might have been had he remained faithful to
Catholic ideals."
^ a b c d e Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 100
^ a b c Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 99
^ a b c d e Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 101
^ Cairns – Berlioz vol. 2, p. 761
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^ Moi,
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz on IMDb
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^ Holoman, 45.
^ Quoted in Holoman, 46.
^ Holoman, 93.
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^ a b c MacDonald, New Grove, 2:582.
^ Holoman, 92.
^ MacDonald, New Grove, 2:582–3.
^ a b Memoirs, 104.
^ Holoman, 48.
^ Holoman, 48–49.
^ Cairns, 1:265.
^ Cairns, 1:265–6.
^ Cairns, 1:261.
^ Quoted in Holoway, 93.
^
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External links[edit]
Book: Hector Berlioz
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Hector Berlioz
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hector Berlioz.
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at Encyclopædia Britannica
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz discography at Discogs
Works by
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at Internet Archive
Works by
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at
LibriVox
LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
The
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz Website, comprehensive Berlioz reference site,
including scores, analysis and libretti
"Discovering Berlioz". BBC Radio 3.
Association Nationale Hector Berlioz, French National Berlioz Society
U.K. Berlioz Society website
Festival Berlioz
Free scores by Berlioz at the International Music Score Library
Project (IMSLP)
Grande ouverture de
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini / par Hector Berlioz; for piano
four hands
Le carnaval romain, for piano four hands
Free scores by
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz in the Choral Public Domain Library
(ChoralWiki)
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz at Find a Grave
Berlioz cylinder recordings, Cylinder Preservation and Digitization
Project at the
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara library
Works
Texts and translations of Berlioz's vocal music at the LiederNet Archive The Complete Berlioz, list of works by Berlioz, University of California, Davis. The list is abstracted from D. Kern Holoman, Catalogue of the Works of Hector Berlioz, New Berlioz Edition vol. 25 (Bärenreiter, 1987). The Berlioz Song Site, scores and texts of Berlioz songs for voice and piano
Writings
The Orchestral Conductor by Hector Berlioz A treatise upon modern instrumentation and orchestration by Hector Berlioz
v t e
Compositions by Hector Berlioz
Operas
Les francs-juges, Op. 3 Benvenuto Cellini, Op. 23 Les Troyens, Op. 29 Béatrice et Bénédict, Op. 27
Symphonies and overtures
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 Harold en Italie, Op. 16 Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17 Grand symphonie funèbre et triomphale, Op. 15 Overtures
Liturgical works
Messe solennelle Requiem, Op. 5 Te Deum, Op. 22
Other choral works
Lélio, Op. 14b Tristia, Op. 18 La damnation de Faust, Op. 24 L'enfance du Christ, Op. 25
Songs and cantatas
Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome cantatas
Les nuits d'été, Op. 7
Other
Mémoires Treatise on Instrumentation
v t e
New German School
Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein Hector Berlioz Franz Liszt Richard Wagner
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