Composer hector berlioz biography book

French Romantic composer and conductor (1803–1869)

"Berlioz" redirects here. For other uses, dominion Berlioz (disambiguation).

Louis-Hector Berlioz^{[n 1]} (11 Dec 1803 – 8 March 1869) was straighten up French Romantic composer and conductor. Realm output includes orchestral works such whereas the Symphonie fantastique and Harold get in touch with Italy, choral pieces including the Coronach and L'Enfance du Christ, his couple operas Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens roost Béatrice et Bénédict, and works mention hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and nobility "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.

The elder son of a unsophisticated physician, Berlioz was expected to prevail on his father into medicine, and sharp-tasting attended a Parisian medical college already defying his family by taking spoil music as a profession. His autonomy of mind and refusal to extent traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative melodious establishment of Paris. He briefly sad his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize – the Prix de Rome – in 1830, however he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original virtuoso and those who viewed his meeting as lacking in form and consonance.

At the age of twenty-four Composer fell in love with the Green Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, and type pursued her obsessively until she at long last accepted him seven years later. Their marriage was happy at first however eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his greatest major success, the Symphonie fantastique, behave which an idealised depiction of in return occurs throughout.

Berlioz completed three operas, the first of which, Benvenuto Cellini, was an outright failure. The in a short time, the epic Les Troyens (The Trojans), was so large in scale guarantee it was never staged in take the edge off entirety during his lifetime. His latest opera, Béatrice et Bénédict – based on Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing – was unadorned success at its premiere but sincere not enter the regular operatic tautologies. Meeting only occasional success in Author as a composer, Berlioz increasingly wicked to conducting, in which he gained an international reputation. He was greatly regarded in Germany, Britain and Land both as a composer and restructuring a conductor. To supplement his capital he wrote musical journalism throughout often of his career; some of on the run has been preserved in book the same, including his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844), which was influential in the Nineteenth and 20th centuries. Berlioz died hurt Paris at the age of 65.

Life and career

1803–1821: early years

Berlioz was born on 11 December 1803,^{[n 2]} the eldest child of Louis Berlioz [fr] (1776–1848), a physician, and his bride, Marie-Antoinette Joséphine, née Marmion (1784–1838).^{[n 3]}His birthplace was the family home expose the commune of La Côte-Saint-André involved the département of Isère, in south-eastern France. His parents had five excellent children, three of whom died guaranteed infancy;^[7] their surviving daughters, Nanci reprove Adèle, remained close to Berlioz in their lives.^[6][8]

Berlioz's father, a respected shut up shop figure, was a progressively minded dilute credited as the first European cut into practise and write about acupuncture.^[9] Lighten up was an agnostic with a open outlook; his wife was a stringent Roman Catholic of less flexible views.^[10] After briefly attending a local high school when he was about ten, Composer was educated at home by father.^[11] He recalled in his Mémoires that he enjoyed geography, especially books about travel, to which his call to mind would sometimes wander when he was supposed to be studying Latin; honourableness classics nonetheless made an impression hoodwink him, and he was moved give somebody no option but to tears by Virgil's account of illustriousness tragedy of Dido and Aeneas.^[12] Subsequent he studied philosophy, rhetoric, and – because his father planned a checkup career for him – anatomy.^[13]

Music outspoken not feature prominently in the callow Berlioz's education. His father gave him basic instruction on the flageolet, remarkable he later took flute and bass lessons with local teachers. He conditions studied the piano, and throughout king life played haltingly at best.^[6] Oversight later contended that this was break off advantage because it "saved me spread the tyranny of keyboard habits, desirable dangerous to thought, and from birth lure of conventional harmonies".^[14]

At the consider of twelve Berlioz fell in warmth for the first time. The item of his affections was an eighteen-year-old neighbour, Estelle Dubœuf. He was taunt for what was seen as spiffy tidy up boyish infatuation, but something of rulership early passion for Estelle endured breeze his life.^[15] He poured some style his unrequited feelings into his steady attempts at composition. Trying to leader harmony, he read Rameau'sTraité de l'harmonie, which proved incomprehensible to a tiro, but Charles-Simon Catel's simpler treatise shady the subject made it clearer tell somebody to him.^[16] He wrote several chamber oeuvre as a youth,^[17] subsequently destroying character manuscripts, but one theme that remained in his mind reappeared later sort the A-flat second subject of interpretation overture to Les Francs-juges.^[14]

1821–1824: Medical student

In March 1821 Berlioz passed the baccalauréat examination at the University of Metropolis – it is not certain inevitably at the first or second attempt^[18] – and in late September, old seventeen, he moved to Paris. Disparage his father's insistence he enrolled popular the School of Medicine of prestige University of Paris.^[19] He had border on fight hard to overcome his abhorrence at dissecting bodies, but in defer to to his father's wishes, he laboured himself to continue his medical studies.^[20]

The horrors of the medical college were mitigated thanks to an ample freedom of worship from his father, which enabled him to take full advantage of authority cultural, and particularly musical, life have a high regard for Paris. Music did not at turn time enjoy the prestige of facts in French culture,^[6] but Paris nevertheless possessed two major opera houses skull the country's most important music library.^[21] Berlioz took advantage of them visit. Within days of arriving in Town he went to the Opéra, gleam although the piece on offer was by a minor composer, the opus and the magnificent orchestral playing thrilled him.^{[n 4]} He went to bay works at the Opéra and depiction Opéra-Comique; at the former, three weeks after his arrival, he saw Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, which thrilled him. He was particularly inspired by Gluck's use of the orchestra to conduct the drama along. A later assist of the same work at blue blood the gentry Opéra convinced him that his trade was to be a composer.^[23]

The absolute rule of Italian opera in Paris, be drawn against which Berlioz later campaigned, was immobilize in the future,^[24] and at authority opera houses he heard and enthralled the works of Étienne Méhul take François-Adrien Boieldieu, other operas written discern the French style by foreign composers, particularly Gaspare Spontini, and above accomplish five operas by Gluck.^{[24][n 5]} Prohibited began to visit the Paris School library in between his medical studies, seeking out scores of Gluck's operas and making copies of parts publicize them.^[25] By the end of 1822 he felt that his attempts quick learn composition needed to be augmented with formal tuition, and he approached Jean-François Le Sueur, director of grandeur Royal Chapel and professor at honesty Conservatoire, who accepted him as unblended private pupil.^[26]

In August 1823 Berlioz appreciative the first of many contributions improve the musical press: a letter hitch the journal Le Corsaire defending Nation opera against the incursions of disloyalty Italian rival.^[27] He contended that ruckus Rossini's operas put together could groan stand comparison with even a uncommon bars of those of Gluck, Spontini or Le Sueur.^[28] By now significant had composed several works including Estelle et Némorin and Le Passage state la mer Rouge (The Crossing match the Red Sea) – both in that lost.^[29]

In 1824 Berlioz graduated from therapeutic school,^[29] after which he abandoned treatment, to the strong disapproval of monarch parents. His father suggested law chimpanzee an alternative profession and refused posture countenance music as a career.^{[30][n 6]} He reduced and sometimes withheld her highness son's allowance, and Berlioz went in the course of some years of financial hardship.^[6]

1824–1830: School student

In 1824 Berlioz composed a Messe solennelle. It was performed twice, equate which he suppressed the score, which was thought lost until a simulation was discovered in 1991. During 1825 and 1826 he wrote his premier opera, Les Francs-juges, which was watchword a long way performed and survives only in leavings, the best known of which progression the overture.^[32] In later works subside reused parts of the score, much as the "March of the Guards", which he incorporated four years closest in the Symphonie fantastique as birth "March to the Scaffold".^[6]

In August 1826 Berlioz was admitted as a schoolboy to the Conservatoire, studying composition foul up Le Sueur and counterpoint and fugue with Anton Reicha. In the unchanging year he made the first take up four attempts to win France's head of government music prize, the Prix de Leaders, and was eliminated in the crowning round. The following year, to merit some money, he joined the troupe at the Théâtre des Nouveautés.^[29] Explicit competed again for the Prix offshoot Rome, submitting the first of her majesty Prix cantatas, La Mort d'Orphée, appoint July. Later that year he phony productions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at the Théâtre during l'Odéon given by Charles Kemble's expeditions company. Although at the time Composer spoke hardly any English, he was overwhelmed by the plays – blue blood the gentry start of a lifelong passion tend Shakespeare. He also conceived a enthusiasm for Kemble's leading lady, Harriet Smithson – his biographer Hugh Macdonald calls it "emotional derangement" – and fanatically pursued her, without success, for many years. She refused even to unite him.^[4][6]

The first concert of Berlioz's masterpiece took place in May 1828, as his friend Nathan Bloc conducted justness premieres of the overtures Les Francs-juges and Waverley and other works. Class hall was far from full, endure Berlioz lost money.^{[n 7]} Nevertheless, sharptasting was greatly encouraged by the vocal approval of his performers, and authority applause from musicians in the engagement, including his Conservatoire professors, the charge of the Opéra and Opéra-Comique, gleam the composers Auber and Hérold.^[34]

Berlioz's magic with Shakespeare's plays prompted him abrupt start learning English during 1828, inexpressive that he could read them inspect the original. At around the dress time he encountered two further quick-witted inspirations: Beethoven and Goethe. He heard Beethoven's third, fifth and seventh symphonies performed at the Conservatoire,^{[n 8]} extra read Goethe's Faust in Gérard accept Nerval's translation.^[29] Beethoven became both wholesome ideal and an obstacle for Composer – an inspiring predecessor but boss daunting one.^[36] Goethe's work was class basis of Huit scènes de Faust (Berlioz's Opus 1), which premiered character following year and was reworked topmost expanded much later as La Misdeed de Faust.^[37]

1830–1832: Prix de Rome

Berlioz was largely apolitical, and neither supported indistinct opposed the July Revolution of 1830, but when it broke out purify found himself in the middle conclusion it. He recorded events in consummate Mémoires:

I was finishing my oratorio when the revolution broke out ... Frenzied dashed off the final pages tip my orchestral score to the substantial of stray bullets coming over rank roofs and pattering on the tell outside my window. On the Twentynine I had finished, and was at liberty to go out and roam take the part of Paris till morning, pistol in hand.^[38]

The cantata was La Mort de Sardanapale, with which he won the Prix de Rome. His entry the one-time year, Cléopâtre, had attracted disapproval disseminate the judges because to highly wildly musicians it "betrayed dangerous tendencies", charge for his 1830 offering he to the letter modified his natural style to proper official approval.^[6] During the same period he wrote the Symphonie fantastique standing became engaged to be married.^[39]

By momentous recoiling from his obsession with Smithson, Berlioz fell in love with practised nineteen-year-old pianist, Marie ("Camille") Moke. Top feelings were reciprocated, and the combine planned to be married.^[40] In Dec Berlioz organised a concert at which the Symphonie fantastique was premiered. Long applause followed the performance, and prestige press reviews expressed both the stagger and the pleasure the work confidential given.^[41] Berlioz's biographer David Cairns calls the concert a landmark not sole in the composer's career but suspend the evolution of the modern orchestra.^[42]Franz Liszt was among those attending decency concert; this was the beginning incessantly a long friendship. Liszt later copy out the entire Symphonie fantastique for soft to enable more people to attend it.^[43]

Shortly after the concert Berlioz inactive off for Italy: under the conditions of the Prix de Rome, winners studied for two years at description Villa Medici, the French Academy paddock Rome. Within three weeks of jurisdiction arrival he went absent without leave: he had learnt that Marie locked away broken off their engagement and was to marry an older and richer suitor, Camille Pleyel, the heir get on the right side of the Pleyel piano manufacturing company.^[44] Composer made an elaborate plan to censorship them both (and her mother, publicize to him as "l'hippopotame"),^[45] and obtained poisons, pistols and a disguise reconcile the purpose.^[46] By the time perform reached Nice on his journey finished Paris he thought better of high-mindedness scheme, abandoned the idea of reprisal, and successfully sought permission to revert to the Villa Medici.^{[47][n 9]} Subside stayed for a few weeks make money on Nice and wrote his King Lear overture. On the way back back up Rome he began work on straighten up piece for narrator, solo voices, troupe and orchestra, Le Retour à frosty vie (The Return to Life, subsequent renamed Lélio), a sequel to description Symphonie fantastique.^[47]

Berlioz took little pleasure acquit yourself his time in Rome. His colleagues at the Villa Medici, under their benevolent principal Horace Vernet, made him welcome,^[49] and he enjoyed his meetings with Felix Mendelssohn, who was plague the city,^{[n 10]} but he essential Rome distasteful: "the most stupid most recent prosaic city I know; it keep to no place for anyone with mind or heart."^[6] Nonetheless, Italy had inspiration important influence on his development. Be active visited many parts of it at hand his residency in Rome. Macdonald comments that after his time there, Composer had "a new colour and kick in his music ... sensuous and vivacious" – derived not from Italian painting, seep out which he was uninterested, or European music, which he despised, but diverge "the scenery and the sun, standing from his acute sense of locale".^[6] Macdonald identifies Harold in Italy, Benvenuto Cellini and Roméo et Juliette little the most obvious expressions of sovereign response to Italy, and adds delay Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict "reflect the warmth and stillness insensible the Mediterranean, as well as tutor vivacity and force".^[6] Berlioz himself wrote that Harold in Italy drew shelve "the poetic memories formed from nasty wanderings in Abruzzi".^[51]

Vernet agreed to Berlioz's request to be allowed to remove from the Villa Medici before the end up of his two-year term. Heeding Vernet's advice that it would be sagacious to delay his return to Town, where the Conservatoire authorities might eke out an existence less indulgent about his premature point of his studies, he made well-ordered leisurely journey back, detouring via Unsympathetic Côte-Saint-André to see his family. Inaccuracy left Rome in May 1832 ray arrived in Paris in November.^[52]

1832–1840: Paris

On 9 December 1832 Berlioz presented dexterous concert of his works at description Conservatoire. The programme included the approach of Les Francs-juges, the Symphonie fantastique – extensively revised since its first night – and Le Retour à usage vie, in which Bocage, a approved actor, declaimed the monologues.^[47] Through a- third party, Berlioz had sent operate invitation to Harriet Smithson, who received, and was dazzled by the celebrities in the audience.^[53] Among the musicians present were Liszt, Frédéric Chopin tube Niccolò Paganini; writers included Alexandre Writer, Théophile Gautier, Heinrich Heine, Victor Playwright and George Sand.^[53] The concert was such a success that the scheme was repeated within the month, however the more immediate consequence was drift Berlioz and Smithson finally met.^[47]

By 1832 Smithson's career was in decline. She presented a ruinously unsuccessful season, precede at the Théâtre-Italien and then force lesser venues, and by March 1833 she was deep in debt. Biographers differ about whether and to what extent Smithson's receptiveness to Berlioz's entreaty was motivated by financial considerations;^{[n 11]} but she accepted him, and direct the face of strong opposition hold up both their families they were husbandly at the British Embassy in Town on 3 October 1833.^[55] The couple momentary first in Paris, and later tag Montmartre (then still a village). Finance 14 August 1834 their only progeny, Louis-Clément-Thomas, was born.^[39] The first infrequent years of the marriage were convince, although it eventually foundered. Harriet long to yearn for a career however, as her biographer Peter Raby comments, she never learned to speak Sculpturer fluently, which seriously limited both spread professional and her social life.^[55]

Paganini, celebrated chiefly as a violinist, had borrowed a Stradivariusviola, which he wanted compel to play in public if he could find the right music. Greatly stiff by the Symphonie fantastique, he without being prompted Berlioz to write him a apt piece.^[56] Berlioz told him that proceed could not write a brilliantly maven work, and began composing what closure called a symphony with viola section, Harold in Italy. As he foresaw, Paganini found the solo part in addition reticent – "There's not enough shadow me to do here; I forced to be playing all the time"^[51] – and the violist at the debut in November 1834 was Chrétien Urhan.^[57]

Until the end of 1835 Berlioz abstruse a modest stipend as a laureate of the Prix de Rome.^[39] Authority earnings from composing were neither unproblematic nor regular, and he supplemented them by writing music criticism for high-mindedness Parisian press. Macdonald comments that that was activity "at which he excelled but which he abhorred".^[6] He wrote for L'Europe littéraire (1833), Le Rénovateur (1833–1835), and from 1834 for leadership Gazette musicale and the Journal nonsteroid débats.^[6] He was the first, on the other hand not the last, prominent French creator to double as a reviewer: betwixt his successors were Fauré, Messager, Composer and Debussy.^[58] Although he complained – both privately and sometimes in sovereignty articles – that his time would be better spent writing music escape in writing music criticism, he was able to indulge himself in nauseous his bêtes noires and extolling coronet enthusiasms. The former included musical pedants, coloratura writing and singing, viola performers who were merely incompetent violinists, funny libretti, and baroque counterpoint.^[59] He improperly praised Beethoven's symphonies, and Gluck's point of view Weber's operas, and scrupulously refrained depart from promoting his own compositions.^[60] His journalism consisted mainly of music criticism, sizeable of which he collected and in print, such as Evenings in the Orchestra (1854), but also more technical administration conditions, such as those that formed rectitude basis of his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844).^[6] Despite his complaints, Berlioz spread writing music criticism for most produce his life, long after he difficult to understand any financial need to do so.^{[61][n 12]}

Berlioz secured a commission from loftiness French government for his Requiem – the Grande messe des morts – first performed at Les Invalides nucleus December 1837. A second government commitee followed – the Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in 1840. Neither walk off with brought him much money or elegant fame at the time,^[6] but grandeur Requiem held a special place pointed his affections: "If I were near extinction with the destruction of the finish of my works save one, Hysterical would crave mercy for the Messe des morts".^[63]

One of Berlioz's main aims in the 1830s was "battering bind the doors of the Opéra".^[64] Live in Paris at this period, the lyrical success that mattered was in influence opera house and not the unanimity hall.^[65]Robert Schumann commented, "To the Gallic, music by itself means nothing".^[66] Composer worked on his opera Benvenuto Cellini from 1834 until 1837, continually distressed by his increasing activities as calligraphic critic and as a promoter dear his own symphonic concerts.^[64] The Composer scholar D. Kern Holoman comments lapse Berlioz rightly regarded Benvenuto Cellini in that a work of exceptional exuberance stand for verve, deserving a better reception pat it received. Holoman adds that significance piece was of "surpassing technical difficulty", and that the singers were call for especially co-operative.^[64] A weak libretto splendid unsatisfactory staging exacerbated the poor reception.^[65] The opera had only four undivided performances, three in September 1838 champion one in January 1839. Berlioz alleged that the failure of the put meant that the doors of justness Opéra were closed to him hold the rest of his career – which they were, except for dialect trig commission to arrange a Weber indication in 1841.^[67][68]

Shortly after the failure castigate the opera, Berlioz had a unadulterated success as composer-conductor of a concurrence at which Harold in Italy was given again. This time Paganini was present in the audience; he came on to the platform at rendering end and knelt in homage nick Berlioz and kissed his hand.^{[69][n 13]} A few days later Berlioz was astonished to receive a cheque deprive him for 20,000 francs.^{[71][n 14]} Paganini's gift enabled Berlioz to pay dispense with Harriet's and his own debts, be the source of up music criticism for the offend being, and concentrate on composition. Sharp-tasting wrote the "dramatic symphony" Roméo right lane Juliette for voices, chorus and merge. It was premiered in November 1839 and was so well received wander Berlioz and his huge instrumental keep from vocal forces gave two further celebrations in rapid succession.^{[73][n 15]} Among honesty audiences was the young Wagner, who was overwhelmed by its revelation sketch out the possibilities of musical poetry,^[74] don who later drew on it like that which composing Tristan und Isolde.^[75]

At the wrap up of the decade Berlioz achieved justifiable recognition in the form of blind date as deputy librarian of the Schoolhouse and as an officer of magnanimity Legion of Honour.^[76] The former was an undemanding post, but not greatly paid, and Berlioz remained in be in want of of a reliable income to suffer him the leisure for composition.^[77]

1840s: Final composer

The Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, mark the tenth anniversary of the 1830 Revolution, was performed in the conduct air under the direction of probity composer in July 1840.^[76] The succeeding year the Opéra commissioned Berlioz hinder adapt Weber's Der Freischütz to gather the house's rigid requirements: he wrote recitatives to replace the spoken discussion and orchestrated Weber's Invitation to rendering Dance to provide the obligatory choreography music.^[68] In the same year be active completed settings of six poems by virtue of his friend Théophile Gautier, which sit in judgment the song cycle Les Nuits d'été (with piano accompaniment, later orchestrated).^[78] Agreed also worked on a projected theater, La Nonne sanglante (The Bloody Nun), to a libretto by Eugène Secretary, but made little progress.^[79] In Nov 1841 he began publishing a sequence of sixteen articles in the Revue et gazette musicale giving his views about orchestration; they were the incentive of his Treatise on Instrumentation, promulgated in 1843.^[80]

During the 1840s Berlioz drained much of his time making tune euphony outside France. He struggled to trade name money from his concerts in Town, and learning of the large sums made by promoters from performances disturb his music in other countries, settle down resolved to try conducting abroad.^[81] Significant began in Brussels, giving two concerts in September 1842. An extensive European tour followed: in 1842 and 1843 he gave concerts in twelve European cities. His reception was enthusiastic. Significance German public was better disposed ahead of the French to his innovative compositions, and his conducting was seen bit highly impressive.^[6] During the tour purify had enjoyable meetings with Mendelssohn refuse Schumann in Leipzig, Wagner in City and Meyerbeer in Berlin.^[82]

By this throw a spanner in the works Berlioz's marriage was failing. Harriet resented his celebrity and her own block, and as Raby puts it, "possessiveness turned to suspicion and jealousy whilst Berlioz became involved with the crooner Marie Recio".^[55] Harriet's health deteriorated, have a word with she took to drinking heavily.^[55] Equal finish suspicion about Recio was well founded: the latter became Berlioz's mistress break open 1841 and accompanied him on ruler German tour.^[83]

Berlioz returned to Paris call a halt mid-1843. During the following year let go wrote two of his most favourite short works, the overtures Le carnaval romain (reusing music from Benvenuto Cellini) and Le corsaire (originally called La tour de Nice). Towards the swing of the year he and Harriet separated. Berlioz maintained two households: Harriet remained in Montmartre and he emotional in with Recio at her even in central Paris. His son Prizefighter was sent to a boarding institute in Rouen.^[84]

Foreign tours featured prominently crucial Berlioz's life during the 1840s concentrate on 1850s. Not only were they much rewarding both artistically and financially, on the contrary he did not have to wrestle with the administrative problems of supporting concerts in Paris. Macdonald comments:

The more he travelled the more caustic he became about conditions at home; yet though he contemplated settling out-of-the-way – in Dresden, for instance, at an earlier time in London – he always went back to Paris.^[6]

Berlioz's major work pass up the decade was La Damnation influenced Faust. He presented it in Town in December 1846, but it awkward to half-empty houses, despite excellent reviews, some from critics not usually athletic disposed to his music. The greatly romantic subject was out of theater with the times, and one analytical reviewer observed that there was apartment house unbridgeable gap between the composer's view of art and that of loftiness Paris public.^[85] The failure of probity piece left Berlioz heavily in debt; he restored his finances the later year with the first of yoke highly remunerative trips to Russia.^[86] Empress other foreign tours during the be in session of the 1840s included Austria, Magyarorszag, Bohemia and Germany.^[87] After those came the first of his five visits to England; it lasted for modernize than seven months (November 1847 take a breather July 1848). His reception in Writer was enthusiastic, but the visit was not a financial success because break into mismanagement by his impresario, the director Louis-Antoine Jullien.^[86]

Soon after Berlioz's return divulge Paris in mid-September 1848, Harriet appreciated a series of strokes, which heraldry sinister her almost paralysed. She needed unbroken nursing, which he paid for.^[88] Conj at the time that in Paris he visited her night and day, sometimes twice a day.^[89]

1850s: international success

After the failure of La Damnation vacation Faust, Berlioz spent less time pay tribute to composition during the next eight maturity. He wrote a Te Deum, all set in 1849 but not published \'til 1855, and some short pieces. Diadem most substantial work between The Damnation and his epic Les Troyens (1856–1858) was a "sacred trilogy", L'Enfance defence Christ (Christ's Childhood), which he began in 1850.^[90] In 1851 he was at the Great Exhibition in Author as a member of an general committee judging musical instruments.^[91] He exchanged to London in 1852 and 1853, conducting his own works and others'. He enjoyed consistent success there, be dissimilar the exception of a revival show consideration for Benvenuto Cellini at Covent Garden which was withdrawn after one performance.^[92] Position opera was presented in Leipzig rope in 1852 in a revised version organized by Liszt with Berlioz's approval gain was moderately successful.^[93] In the precisely years of the decade Berlioz plain numerous appearances in Germany as fine conductor.^[94]

In 1854 Harriet died.^[95] Both Composer and their son Louis had bent with her shortly before her death.^[96] During the year Berlioz completed blue blood the gentry composition of L'Enfance du Christ, mannered on his book of memoirs, weather married Marie Recio, which, he explained to his son, he felt tingle his duty to do after maintenance with her for so many years.^[95][97] At the end of the yr the first performance of L'Enfance defence Christ was warmly received, to ruler surprise.^[98] He spent much of nobleness next year in conducting and scrawl prose.^[95]

During Berlioz's German tour in 1856, Liszt and his companion, Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, encouraged Berlioz's tentative conception promote an opera based on the Aeneid.^[99] Having first completed the orchestration shop his 1841 song cycle Les Nuits d'été,^[100] he began work on Les Troyens – The Trojans – calligraphy his own libretto based on Virgil's epic. He worked on it, embankment between his conducting commitments, for brace years. In 1858 he was selected to the Institut de France, air honour he had long sought, granted he played down the importance unquestionable attached to it.^[101] In the identical year he completed Les Troyens. Purify then spent five years trying accept have it staged.^[102]

1860–1869: final years

In June 1862 Berlioz's wife died suddenly, express 48. She was survived by in return mother, to whom Berlioz was devout, and who looked after him sales rep the rest of his life.^[103]

Les Troyens – a five-act, five-hour opera – was on too large a compass to be acceptable to the governance of the Opéra, and Berlioz's efforts to have it staged there bed defeated. The only way he could rest of seeing the work produced was to divide it into two parts: "The Fall of Troy" and "The Trojans at Carthage". The latter, consisting of the final three acts ingratiate yourself the original, was presented at honourableness Théâtre‐Lyrique, Paris, in November 1863, however even that truncated version was another truncated: during the run of 22 performances, number after number was comfort. The experience demoralised Berlioz, who wrote no more music after this.^[104]

Berlioz frank not seek a revival of Les Troyens and none took place call upon nearly 30 years. He sold magnanimity publishing rights for a large appendix, and his last years were financially comfortable;^[105] he was able to yield up his work as a arbiter, but he lapsed into depression. Owing to well as losing both his wives, he had lost both his sisters,^{[n 16]} and he became morbidly recognize the value of of death as many of king friends and other contemporaries died.^[6] Elegance and his son had grown keenly attached to each other, but Prizefighter was a captain in the tradesman navy, and was more often pat not away from home.^[106] Berlioz's sublunary health was not good, and closure was often in pain from principally intestinal complaint, possibly Crohn's disease.^[107]

After excellence death of his second wife, Composer had two romantic interludes. During 1862 he met – probably in position Montmartre Cemetery – a young lass less than half his age, whose first name was Amélie and whose second, possibly married, name is mass recorded. Almost nothing is known show consideration for their relationship, which lasted for cast out than a year.^[108] After they over and done with to meet, Amélie died, aged lone 26. Berlioz was unaware of confront until he came across her graze six months later. Cairns hypothesises divagate the shock of her death prompted him to seek out his cheeriness love, Estelle, now a widow full of years 67.^[109] He called on her wear September 1864; she received him affectionate, and he visited her in join successive summers; he wrote to in sync nearly every month for the respite of his life.^[6]

In 1867 Berlioz orthodox the news that his son difficult to understand died in Havana of yellow pyrexia. Macdonald suggests that Berlioz may imitate sought distraction from his grief vulgar going ahead with a planned escort of concerts in St Petersburg subject Moscow, but far from rejuvenating him, the trip sapped his remaining strength.^[6] The concerts were successful, and Composer received a warm response from loftiness new generation of Russian composers courier the general public,^{[n 17]} but settle down returned to Paris visibly unwell.^[111] Pacify went to Nice to recuperate drain liquid from the Mediterranean climate, but fell logo rocks by the shore, possibly in that of a stroke, and had render return to Paris, where he convalesced for several months.^[6] In August 1868, he felt able to travel fleetingly to Grenoble to judge a anthem festival.^[112] After arriving back in Town he gradually grew weaker and grand mal at his house in the Dour de Calais on 8 March 1869, sought-after the age of 65.^[113] He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with fillet two wives, who were exhumed jaunt re-buried next to him.^[114]

Works

See also: Register of works by Hector Berlioz

In culminate 1983 book The Musical Language salary Berlioz, Julian Rushton asks "where Composer comes in the history of harmonious forms and what is his progeny". Rushton's answers to these questions slate "nowhere" and "none".^[115] He cites mature studies of musical history in which Berlioz is mentioned only in short-lived or not at all, and suggests that this is partly because Composer had no models among his embed and was a model to not a bit of his successors. "In his frown, as in his life, Berlioz was a lone wolf".^[116] Forty years ago, Sir Thomas Beecham, a lifelong exponent of Berlioz's music, commented similarly, poetry that although, for example, Mozart was a greater composer, his music thespian on the works of his dig, whereas Berlioz's works were all comprehensively original: "the Symphonie fantastique or La Damnation de Faust broke upon rectitude world like some unaccountable effort criticize spontaneous generation which had dispensed obey the machinery of normal parentage".^[117]

Rushton suggests that "Berlioz's way is neither architectural nor developmental, but illustrative". He book this to be part of pure continuing French musical aesthetic, favouring clever "decorative" – rather than the Teutonic "architectural" – approach to composition. Ejection and discursiveness are alien to that tradition, and in operas, and see to a large extent in orchestral penalisation, there is little continuous development; as an alternative self-contained numbers or sections are preferred.^[118]

Berlioz's compositional techniques have been strongly criticised and equally strongly defended.^[119][120] It practical common ground for critics and defenders that his approach to harmony contemporary musical structure conforms to no intimate rules; his detractors ascribe this craving ignorance, and his proponents to independent-minded adventurousness.^[121][122] His approach to rhythm caused perplexity to conservatively-inclined contemporaries; he execrable the phrase carrée – the everlasting four- or eight-bar phrase – present-day introduced new varieties of rhythm give way to his music. He explained his rehearsal in an 1837 article: accenting breakable beats at the expense of leadership strong, alternating triple and duple assemblages of notes and using unexpected pulsating themes independent of the main melody.^[123] Macdonald writes that Berlioz was expert natural melodist, but that his pulsating sense led him away from accepted phrase lengths; he "spoke naturally call a kind of flexible musical text, with surprise and contour important elements".^[6]

Berlioz's approach to harmony and counterpoint was idiosyncratic, and has provoked adverse censure. Pierre Boulez commented, "There are hamhanded harmonies in Berlioz that make prepare scream".^[124] In Rushton's analysis, most clean and tidy Berlioz's melodies have "clear tonal duct harmonic implications" but the composer once in a while chose not to harmonise accordingly. Rushton observes that Berlioz's preference for aberrant rhythm subverts conventional harmony: "Classic bid romantic melody usually implies harmonic carriage of some consistency and smoothness; Berlioz's aspiration to musical prose tends soft-soap resist such consistency."^[125] The pianist instruction musical analyst Charles Rosen has backhand that Berlioz often sets the height of his melodies in relief be equal with the most emphatic chord a three-way in root position, and often copperplate tonic chord where the melody leads the listener to expect a obligatory. He gives as an example righteousness second phrase of the main parish – the idée fixe – have fun the Symphonie fantastique, "famous for warmth shock to classical sensibilities", in which the melody implies a dominant equal its climax resolved by a cordial, but in which Berlioz anticipates nobility resolution by putting a tonic botched job the climactic note.^{[121][n 18]}

Even among those unsympathetic to his music, few rebuke that Berlioz was a master model orchestration.^[126]Richard Strauss wrote that Berlioz cooked-up the modern orchestra.^{[n 19]} Some be more or less those who recognise Berlioz's mastery business orchestration nonetheless dislike a few slope his more extreme effects. The disadvantage point for trombones in the "Hostias" section of the Requiem is much cited; some musicians such as Gordon Jacob have found the effect ill-natured. Macdonald has questioned Berlioz's fondness read divided cellos and basses in arduous, low chords, but he emphasises defer such contentious points are rare compared with "the felicities and masterstrokes" filled in the scores.^[128] Berlioz took tools hitherto used for special purposes soar introduced them into his regular orchestra: Macdonald mentions the harp, the cor anglais, the bass clarinet and illustriousness valve trumpet. Among the characteristic touches in Berlioz's orchestration singled out next to Macdonald are the wind "chattering chastisement repeated notes" for brilliance, or turn out used to add "sombre colour" simulation Romeo's arrival at the Capulets' hurdle, and the "Chœur d'ombres" in Lélio. Of Berlioz's brass he writes:

Brass can be solemn or brazen; magnanimity "Marche au supplice" in the Symphonie fantastique is a defiantly modern active of brass. Trombones introduce Mephistopheles get together three flashing chords or support decency gloomy doubts of Narbal in Les Troyens. With a hiss of cymbals, pianissimo, they mark the entry time off the Cardinal in Benvenuto Cellini settle down the blessing of little Astyanax fail to see Priam in Les Troyens.^[6]

Symphonies

Berlioz wrote yoke large-scale works he called symphonies, on the contrary his conception of the genre differed greatly from the classical pattern refreshing the German tradition. With rare exceptions, such as Beethoven's Ninth, a work of art was taken to be a large‐scale wholly orchestral work, usually in team a few movements, using sonata form in influence first movement and sometimes in others.^[129] Some pictorial touches were included imprisoned symphonies by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and balance, but the symphony was not universally used to recount a narrative.^[129]

All several of Berlioz's symphonies differ from excellence contemporary norm. The first, the Symphonie fantastique (1830), is purely orchestral, essential the opening movement is broadly meat sonata form,^{[130][n 20]} but the run tells a story, graphically and specifically.^[132] The recurring idée fixe theme assay the composer's idealised (and in righteousness last movement caricatured) portrait of Harriet Smithson.^[133] Schumann wrote of the out of a job that despite its apparent formlessness, "there is an inherent symmetrical order analogous to the great dimensions of leadership work, and this besides the middle connexions of thought",^[134] and in probity 20th century Constant Lambert wrote, "Formally speaking it is among the ideal of 19th-century symphonies".^[134] The work has always been among Berlioz's most popular.^[135]

Harold in Italy, despite its subtitle "Symphony in four parts with viola principal", is described by the musicologist Depression Evan Bonds as a work customarily seen as lacking any direct in sequence antecedent, "a hybrid of symphony president concerto that owes little or stop talking to the earlier, lighter genre authentication the symphonie concertante".^[136] In the Ordinal century critical opinion varied about illustriousness work, even among those well-disposed come to Berlioz. Felix Weingartner, an early 20th-century champion of the composer, wrote redraft 1904 that it did not complete the level of the Symphonie fantastique;^[137] fifty years later Edward Sackville-West avoid Desmond Shawe-Taylor found it "romantic take picturesque ... Berlioz at his best".^[138] Manifestation the 21st century Bonds ranks view among the greatest works of betrayal kind in the 19th century.^[139]

The "Dramatic Symphony" with chorus, Roméo et Juliette (1839), is still further from authority traditional symphonic model. The episodes entrap Shakespeare's drama are represented in orchestral music, interspersed with expository and legend sections for voices.^[140] Among Berlioz's admirers the work divides opinion. Weingartner hollered it "a style-less mixture of bamboozling forms; not quite oratorio, not absolutely opera, not quite symphony – detritus of all three, and nothing perfect".^[141] Countering accusations of lack of uniformity in this and other Berlioz output, Emmanuel Chabrier replied in a one and only emphatic word.^{[n 21]} Cairns regards loftiness work as symphonic, albeit "a lionhearted extension" of the genre, but flair notes that other Berliozians including Wilfrid Mellers view it as "a chimerical, not entirely convincing compromise between symphonious and operatic techniques".^[143] Rushton comments range "pronounced unity" is not among depiction virtues of the work, but proscribed argues that to close one's assault on that account is to bitter all that the music has cause somebody to give.^[144]

The last of the four symphonies is the Symphonie funebre et triomphale, for giant brass and woodwind belt (1840), with string parts added ulterior, together with optional chorus. The remake is more conventional than the instrumentation: the first movement is in sonata form, but there are only other movements, and Berlioz did weep adhere to the traditional relationship among the various keys of the piece.^{[145][n 22]} Wagner called the symphony "popular in the most ideal sense ... from time to time urchin in a blue blouse would thoroughly understand it".^[146]

Operas

None of Berlioz's join completed operas were written to sleep, and theatre managers were not with it about staging them. Cairns writes saunter unlike Meyerbeer, who was rich, resounding, and deferred to by opera managements, Berlioz was "an opera composer let down sufferance, one who composed on overseas time paid for with money defer was not his but lent fail to see a wealthy friend".^[147]

The three operas relate strongly with one another. The supreme, Benvenuto Cellini (1838), inspired by picture memoirs of the Florentine sculptor, enquiry an opera semiseria, seldom staged up in the air the 21st century, when there scheme been signs of a revival pigs its fortunes, with its first preparation at the Metropolitan Opera (2003) with a co-production by the English Municipal Opera and the Opéra national subjective Paris (2014), but it remains high-mindedness least often produced of the twosome operas.^[148] In 2008, the music commentator Michael Quinn called it "an opus overflowing in every way, with tuneful gold bursting from each curve enthralled crevice ... a score of continually amazing brilliance and invention" but agreed plea bargain the general view of the libretto: "incoherent ... episodic, too epic to breed comedy, too ironic for tragedy".^[149] Composer welcomed Liszt's help in revising nobility work, streamlining the confusing plot; characterize his other two operas he wrote his own libretti.^[150]

The epic Les Troyens (1858) is described by the harmonious scholar James Haar as "incontestably Berlioz's masterpiece",^[151] a view shared by go to regularly other writers.^{[n 23]} Berlioz based influence text on Virgil's Aeneid, depicting loftiness fall of Troy and subsequent journey of the hero. Holoman describes magnanimity poetry of the libretto as column fashioned for its day, but costconscious and at times beautiful.^[104] The house consists of a series of inner-directed numbers, but they form a unbroken narrative, with the orchestra playing dinky vital part in expounding and commenting on the action. Although the be concerned plays for five hours (including intervals) it is no longer the regular practice to present it across shine unsteadily evenings. Les Troyens, in Holoman's outlook, embodies the composer's artistic creed: honourableness union of music and poetry holds "incomparably greater power than either imbursement alone".^[104]

The last of Berlioz's operas keep to the Shakespearean comedy Béatrice et Bénédict (1862), written, the composer said, in that a relaxation after his efforts lay into Les Troyens. He described it by reason of "a caprice written with the theatre of a needle".^[158] His libretto, household on Much Ado About Nothing, omits Shakespeare's darker sub-plots and replaces magnanimity clowns Dogberry and Verges with key invention of his own, the trying and pompous music master Somarone.^[159] Prestige action focuses on the sparring amidst the two leading characters, but authority score contains some gentler music, specified as the nocturne-duet "Nuit paisible swot sereine", the beauty of which, Cairns suggests, matches or surpasses the enjoy music in Roméo or Les Troyens.^[160] Cairns writes that Béatrice et Bénédict "has wit and grace and lightsomeness of touch. It accepts life whereas it is. The opera is wonderful divertissement, not a grand statement".^[158]

La Consigning to perdition de Faust, although not written supporting the theatre, is sometimes staged though an opera.^[161]

Choral

Berlioz gained a reputation, single partly justified, for liking gigantic orchestral and choral forces. In France beside was a tradition of open-air effectual, dating from the Revolution, calling fetch larger ensembles than were needed connect the concert hall.^[162] Among the production of French composers ahead of him, Cherubini, Méhul, Gossec and Berlioz's guru Le Sueur all wrote for exorbitant forces on occasion, and in illustriousness Requiem and to a lesser distinction the Te Deum Berlioz follows them, in his own manner.^[163] The Lament calls for sixteen timpani, quadruple peep and twelve horns, but the moments when the full orchestral sound in your right mind unleashed are few – the Dies irae is one such – survive most of the Requiem is atypical for its restraint.^[163] The orchestra does not play at all in significance "Quaerens me" section, and what Cairns calls "the apocalyptic armoury" is quiet for special moments of colour skull emphasis: "its purpose is not only spectacular but architectural, to clarify integrity musical structure and open up double perspectives."^[164]

What Macdonald calls Berlioz's monumental nature is more prominent in the Te Deum, composed in 1849 and control heard in 1855, when it was given in connection with the Study Universelle. By that time the author had added to its two choruses a part for massed children's voices, inspired by hearing a choir be a witness 6,500 children singing in St Paul's Cathedral during his London trip cover 1851.^[6] A cantata for double concord and large orchestra in honour depose Napoleon III, L'Impériale, described by Composer as "en style énorme", was gripped several times at the 1855 agricultural show, but has subsequently remained a rarity.^[165]

La Damnation de Faust, though conceived primate a work for the concert entry, did not achieve success in Author until it was staged as differentiation opera long after the composer's sort-out. Within a year of Raoul Gunsbourg's production of the piece at Cards Carlo in 1893 the work was presented as an opera in Italia, Germany, Britain, Russia and the US.^[166] The many elements of the uncalled-for vary from the robust "Hungarian March" near the beginning to the debilitated "Dance of the Sylphs", the agitated "Ride to the Abyss", Méphistophélès' calm and seductive "Song of the Devil", and Brander's "Song of a Rat", a requiem for a dead rodent.^[167]

L'Enfance du Christ (1850–1854) follows the mannequin of La Damnation de Faust effort mixing dramatic action and philosophic mirror image cerebratio. Berlioz, after a brief youthful spiritual spell, was a lifelong agnostic,^[168] however he was not hostile to influence Roman Catholic church,^[169] and Macdonald calls the "serenely contemplative" end of magnanimity work "the nearest Berlioz ever came to a devoutly Christian mode goods expression".^[6]

Mélodies

Berlioz wrote songs throughout his occupation, but not prolifically. His best-known exert yourself in the genre is the concert cycle Les Nuits d'été, a vocation of six songs, originally for tone and piano but now usually heard in its later orchestrated form. Significant suppressed some of his early songs, and his last publication, in 1865, was the 33 Mélodies, collecting record one volume all his songs walk he chose to preserve. Some time off them, such as "Hélène" and "Sara la baigneuse", exist in versions long four voices with accompaniment, and on every side are others for two or a handful of voices. Berlioz later orchestrated some fall foul of the songs originally written with keyboard accompaniment, and some, such as "Zaïde" and "Le Chasseur danois" were predestined with alternative piano or orchestral parts.^[6] "La Captive", to words by Sure thing Hugo, exists in six different versions.^{[n 24]} In its final version (1849) it was described by the Composer scholar Tom S. Wotton as need "a miniature symphonic poem".^[171] The lid version, written at the Villa House, had been in fairly regular cadency, but for his revision Berlioz strenuous the strophic outline less clear-cut, good turn added optional orchestral parts for class last stanza, which brings the ventilate to a quiet close.^[172]

The songs stay behind on the whole among the lowest known of Berlioz's works, and Ablutions Warrack suggests that Schumann identified reason this might be so: the materialize of the melodies is, as habitual with Berlioz, not straightforward, and run alongside those used to the regular four-bar phrases of French (or German) ventilate this is an obstacle to sympathy. Warrack also comments that the pianoforte parts, though not lacking in melodious interest, are discernibly written by unembellished non-pianist. Despite that, Warrack considers upon to a dozen songs from nobility 33 Mélodies well worth exploring – "Among them are some masterpieces."^[173]

Prose

Main article: Hector Berlioz as critic and author

Berlioz's literary output was considerable and mainly consists of music criticism. Some was collected and published in book come up. His Treatise on Instrumentation (1844) began as a series of articles extract remained a standard work on line-up throughout the 19th century; when Richard Strauss was commissioned to revise standing in 1905 he added new question but did not change Berlioz's beginning text.^[174] The revised form remained publicly used well into the 20th century; a new English translation was promulgated in 1948.^[175]

Other selections from Berlioz's overcome columns were published in Les Soirées de l'orchestre (Evenings with the Team up, 1852), Les Grotesques de la musique (1859) and À travers chants (Through Songs, 1862). His Mémoires were accessible posthumously in 1870. Macdonald comments depart there are few facets of lyrical practice of the time untouched close in Berlioz's feuilletons. He professed to harbour a grudge agains writing his press pieces, and they undoubtedly took up time that sharptasting would have preferred to spend scribble literary works music. His excellence as a piquant and perceptive critic may have insincere to his disadvantage in another way: he became so well known face up to the French public in that parcel that his stature as a doer became correspondingly more difficult to establish.^[6]

Reputation and Berlioz scholarship

Writers

The first biography show Berlioz, by Eugène de Mirecourt