Hector Berlioz (/bɛʁ.ljoz/ in French1, /'bɛr.ʎo/ in arpitan2) is a French composer, conductor, music critic and writer, born December 11, 1803 in La Côte-Saint-André (Isère) and died on Mars 8, 1869 in Paris.

Taking up, immediately after Beethoven, the symphonic form created by Haydn, Berlioz renewed it in depth through the program symphony (Symphonie Fantastique), the symphony concertante (Harold in Italy) and by creating the “dramatic symphony” (Romeo and Juliet).

The failure of Benvenuto Cellini closed the doors of the Paris Opera to him in 1838. As a result, the comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict was created in Baden-Baden in 1862, and his lyrical masterpiece, Les Troyens, only had a partial premiere at the Opéra-Comique in 1863. Berlioz invented the genres of the “lyrical monodrama”, with Lélio ou le Retour à la vie, of the “dramatic legend”, with The Damnation of Faust, and of the “sacred trilogy”, with The Childhood of Christ, works designed for the concert, between opera and oratorio.

Often calling on considerable numbers in his symphonic (Symphonie funèbre et triumphale), religious (Requiem, Te Deum) and choral music (L'Impériale and Vox populi for double choir, Sara la baigneuse for triple choir), Berlioz organizes important public concerts and created the concept of festival. Finally, with La Captive and the Nuits d'été cycle, he created the genre of melody with orchestra, which developed both in France - where Duparc, Chausson, Ravel and André Jolivet distinguished themselves in particular - and in the foreign, with the cycles of Wagner, Wolf, Mahler, Berg, Schönberg, Richard Strauss and Benjamin Britten.

Still in financial difficulties, the composer undertook to present his music himself during extensive concert tours in Germany, Central Europe and as far as Russia, where his music was well received. With his friend Franz Liszt, Berlioz was at the origin of the great musical nationalist movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries, Russian (from the Group of Five to Stravinsky and Prokofiev), Czech (from Dvořák to Janáček) and Hungarian (until Bartók and Kodály).

Recognized during his lifetime as a master of orchestration and an innovative conductor, Berlioz published, in 1844, his Traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration, which inspired numerous composers and remains a model for works dealing with the same subject in the 20th century, such as those of Rimsky-Korsakov and Charles Koechlin.

An eminent representative of European romanticism, Berlioz considered himself a classical composer3, taking Gluck, Beethoven and Weber as his models. His music has long been the subject of controversy or misunderstanding, mainly in France. It was partly to dispel them that Berlioz undertook the writing of his Memoirs, in 1849, and brought together some of his articles and short stories, in works with deliberately humorous titles (Les Soirées de l'orchester, Les Grotesques de la musique, Through songs).

However, we had to wait for the celebrations of the centenary of his death (1969) and the bicentenary of his birth (2003) for the artistic value and importance of his work, as well as its determining role in the history of music, to be recognized. finally recognized, especially in his native country, and that all of his major scores are recorded.
Biography

Berlioz's life has been the subject of numerous comments without nuance: “What a rich, fine, strong, overflowing life! » enthuses Romain Rolland4. “His life was a martyrdom5”, answers André Boucourechliev; “a series of self-provoked catastrophes”, according to Antoine Goléa6; a life “both agitated and tense, exuberant and tense7” for Claude Ballif; “a romantic life”8, in short, according to the expression of his first biographer Adolphe Boschot, who immediately announces “adventures of love, suicides, ecstasies, roars of pain, feverish activity, struggle for money, misery and ruin, intoxicating triumphs, flat falls, "volcanic" aspirations to the ideal, haunting of death, great lyrical flights to the heights of dreams, desperate old age which seems the agony and martyrdom of a ghost - truly, Berlioz lacked nothing, not even the illuminations of genius, to be the most representative hero of French romanticism9.”
Detailed article: Chronology of the life of Hector Berlioz.
From child to student (1803-1830)
Hector Berlioz as a child.

    “I was born on December 11, 1803, in La Côte-Saint-André, a very small town in France, located in the department of Isère, between Vienne, Grenoble and Lyon10. »

— Memoirs, 1870

Coming from an old family of tanner merchants from Dauphiné, established in La Côte-Saint-André in the Bièvre plain since the 16th century11, Hector Berlioz was born on 19 Frimaire Year XII, i.e. December 11, 1803, at five o'clock in the evening12 . He is the son of Doctor Louis Berlioz, born June 7, 1776, and Marie-Antoinette-Joséphine Marmion, born October 14, 1784 in Grenoble12.
Family environment
A model father: Doctor Berlioz

Hector Berlioz's father, Louis Berlioz, is a doctor. “He always honored his functions by fulfilling them in the most disinterested way, as a benefactor of the poor, rather than as a man obliged to live from his status13. ". He published Memoirs on chronic diseases, blood evacuations and acupuncture and is therefore considered the introducer of acupuncture in France.

Having sent his son Hector to the seminary at the age of six to begin his studies, he decided to personally take charge of his education when the establishment closed in 1811. Berlioz describes his father and the education he received from him in his Memoirs: “He is gifted with a free spirit. this means that he has no social, political or religious prejudice. Poor father, with what tireless patience, with what meticulous and intelligent care he was my teacher of languages, literature, history, geography and even music! […] How much such a task, accomplished in this way, demonstrates in a man tenderness for his son! and that there are few fathers who are capable of it13! »

Doctor Berlioz teaches his son to play the flageolet and to read music. He also taught him the basics of the flute. Discovering his son's gifts and in order to encourage them, he brought from Lyon, in 1817, a music master, Imbert14, who taught Hector singing and the flute. In 1819, he was replaced by Donant14 who taught him to play the guitar. But the doctor will refuse to allow his son to undertake the study of the piano, for fear that he will be drawn too far and turn away from the medicine for which he intends him14. Berlioz was promoted to bachelor of letters in Grenoble on Mars 22, 1821. His father then gave him osteology lessons while waiting for his departure for Paris (in October) where he was to begin medical studies and attend the history lessons of Lacretelle15 and literature of François Andrieux15.

Although Doctor Berlioz was very opposed to his son's artistic vocation, at the end of his life he became quite significantly closer to him. Regarding the death of his father, Berlioz wrote: “But to the affection which naturally exists between a father and his son, there was added for us a friendship independent of this feeling, and perhaps more lively. We had so much agreement on many issues....He was so happy to have been wrong in his predictions about my musical future! On my return from Russia, he admitted to me that one of his greatest desires was to know my Requiem16. »
“Bad mother!”

Berlioz's mother is rarely mentioned in his Memoirs. In May 1823, Doctor Berlioz having authorized his son Hector to return to Paris to study music for a certain time, Berlioz relates her formal opposition: “Your father,” she said to me, abandoning the usual familiarity, had the weakness to consent to your return to Paris, he favors your extravagant and guilty projects! I myself will not have such a reproach to make, and I formally oppose this departure! Yes, I am opposed to it, and I beg you, Hector, not to persist in your folly. Here, I place myself at your knees, I, your mother, I humbly beg you to give it up... And, after a moment of silence: “You refuse me, unhappy man! you were able, without letting yourself give in, to see your mother at your feet! Well ! leave! Go drag yourself through the mire of Paris, disgrace your name, make your father and me die of shame and sorrow! I'm leaving the house until you're out. You are no longer my son! I curse you ! »… and I had to leave without kissing my mother, without getting a word from her, a look, and loaded with her curse17! ".

Another anecdote is recounted in the Memoirs: “My mother, who sometimes teased me about my first passion, was perhaps wrong to play the trick on me that we are about to read. “Here,” she said to me, “a few days after my return from Rome, “here is a letter that I was asked to deliver to a lady who is to pass here shortly in the stagecoach from Vienna. Go to the mail office, while we change horses, you will ask for Mrs. F*** and you will give her the letter. Look closely at this lady, I bet you will recognize her, even though you haven't seen her for seventeen years. » I go, without suspecting what that meant, to the stagecoach station. When she arrives, I approach with the letter in hand, asking for Mrs. F***. “It’s me, sir!” » a voice said to me. It's her ! said a dull thump that resonated in my chest. Estelle!... still beautiful!... Estelle!... We took the letter. Did anyone recognize me?... I came home vibrating with the commotion. “Come on,” said my mother, examining me, “I see that Némorin has not forgotten his Estelle. » Her Estelle! wicked mother18! »

Her death, on February 18, 1838, is only mentioned on the occasion of that of her husband: “I received the news of the death of my father. I had lost my mother ten years previously, and this eternal separation had been cruel to me16...".
Siblings

Hector is the eldest of six children, two of whom died very young: Louise-Julie-Virginie, born May 10, 1807, died June 10, 181419 and Louis-Jules-Félix, born December 10, 181619, died on May 29, 181920. He will always be very attached to his two sisters, Anne-Marguerite, known as Nanci or Nancy, born on February 17, 180619 and who died on May 4, 185021 — even more so Adèle-Eugénie, born on May 9, 181419 and whose death on the 2 Mars 186022, left the composer “devastated” to the point of bursting into tears when he saw his portrait again in the living room of his brother-in-law in Vienna, in 186423. He is also very close to his youngest brother, Prosper, born June 26, 1820. The latter joined him in Paris in October 183824, to study there25. He died at the age of eighteen, on January 15, 1839, probably from typhoid fever, despite a legend that his death resulted from the exaltation experienced while attending Benvenuto Cellini, his brother's opera26.
First love, first compositions
Stella montis - muse of Berlioz by Henri Ding evoking young Estelle, (Grenoble museum).

It was at the age of twelve that Berlioz discovered love in the person of Estelle Duboeuf, aged 17, living in Meylan, a village where his maternal grandfather lived and where he spent part of his been with his sisters and his mother. “On seeing him, I felt an electric shock; I loved him, that says it all. The dizziness took hold of me and never left me. I didn't expect anything... I knew nothing… but I felt a deep pain in my heart…. Jealousy, this pale companion of the purest loves, tortured me at the slightest word addressed by a man to my idol... No, time can't do anything about it... other loves do not erase the traces of the first18. »

At the end of his life, he saw Estelle again, widowed Mme Fornier and living at the Allavets de Vif estate, in Isère. He maintained a correspondence with her and proposed marriage to her, being himself a widower for the second time. She won't accept. Estelle is, however, mentioned in his will: “I give and bequeath to Mrs. Estelle Fornier, who is currently living with her notary son in St-Symphorien-d'Ozon (Isère), the sum of sixteen hundred francs of annual income and life annuity. I beg her to accept this small amount as a memento of the feelings I have had for her all my life. »27

At the same time, Berlioz began to compose28. It was by listening to Pleyel's quartets and thanks to Charles-Simon Catel's treatise on harmony that he learned about harmony. He composed a medley in six parts which he tried in vain to publish, as well as two quintets for flute and strings, one of the themes of which he took up in the opening of Les Francs-juges (1826)14. His first publications were melodies (Cry, poor Colette; Le Dépit de la bergère; Le Maure jaloux). He submitted a cantata for large orchestra (Le Cheval Arab) to Jean-François Lesueur for judgment with a view to its admission into the master's composition class14 and composed a scene borrowed from the drama of Saurin, Beverley or the Player29.
Medicine or music
Portrait of Berlioz by Émile Signol, 1832

    “I spent twenty-four hours under the influence of this first impression, without wanting to hear any more about anatomy or dissection or medicine, and meditating a thousand follies to save myself from the future with which I was threatened30. »

— Memoirs, 1870

Registered at the Paris medical school, he left his family at the end of October and followed the program's courses for a year, before writing to his father that he preferred art to medicine: "I felt my passion for the music increases and prevails over my desire to satisfy my father”31. He fell out with his family, attended the Paris Opera and followed the teachings of Jean-François Lesueur, then Antoine Reicha.

    “I swore, as I left the Opera, that, despite father, mother, uncles, aunts, grandparents and friends, I would be a musician32. »

— Memoirs, 1870

In 1823, he was admitted among the private pupils of Jean-François Lesueur and was enrolled at the Paris Conservatory in October 1826. He discovered the music of Weber and composed in 1824 (Berlioz was then 20 years old) his first major work, The Passage of the Red Sea15 (lost), followed by a Solemn Mass. Created in the Saint-Roch church on July 25, 182533, this Mass was performed a second time at the Saint-Eustache church in 1827. Except for Resurrexit, Berlioz claims to have burned this score, judging it of “little value”34. He nevertheless includes elements in Benvenuto Cellini, the Requiem and the Symphonie Fantastique. Likewise, the theme of Agnus Dei is taken up 25 years later in his Te Deum (1849).

Despite repeated failures in the Rome competition (in 1826, he was eliminated in the preliminary examination which consisted of the composition of a fugue; in 1827, his cantata La Mort d'Orphée was declared "unperformable" by the jury; in 1828, he only obtained the second prize with the cantata Herminie performed by Louise Dabadie who had obtained the prize for Jean-Baptiste Guiraud in 1827), he continued his studies at the Conservatory, then directed by the great master of the time, Luigi Cherubini, with Antoine Reicha for the fugue and counterpoint, and Jean-François Lesueur for the composition.

The performance in 1828 of Beethoven's symphonies by François-Antoine Habeneck was a revelation for Berlioz. “I had just seen Shakespeare and Weber in two appearances; immediately, at another point on the horizon, I saw the immense Beethoven rise. The shock I received was almost comparable to that which Shakespeare had given me. He opened up a new world to me in music, just as the poet had revealed to me a new universe in poetry35. »

Engaged to the pianist Marie-Félicité Moke, he also discovered Goethe and his Faust in Gérard de Nerval's translation, and in 1829 composed Eight Scenes from Faust which, reworked, would become the dramatic legend The Damnation of Faust in 1846.
Rome and Italy

It was in 1830, on his fifth attempt – eliminated in the preliminary examination in 1826, he was admitted to compete in 1827 but The Death of Orpheus was declared “unperformable”; he only obtained a second prize in 1828 with Herminie; the first grand prize was not awarded in 1829, the year he composed Cleopatra – until Berlioz finally won the Prix de Rome with his cantata Sardanapale. In his mind, this competition only aims to convince his family of his value thanks to the recommendation that constitutes a prize awarded by the Academy of Fine Arts. In his letter of August 12, 1829 to his sister Nancy36, he wrote: “What do you want me to tell you, my poor sister, this cursed competition only interested me for my father. »

Disappointed by his failure the previous year with his cantata Cleopatra, misunderstood by the jury (no grand prize having been awarded that year), he decided to curb his usual audacity, which paid off. On August 23, 1830, he wrote to his mother: “And see the good nature of Cherubini who said to Mr. Lesueur “But the devil he is a man; he must have worked terribly since last year.” Can one imagine such blindness, attributing to excess work the invention of a few blissful melodies, and believing myself to have grown when I have shrunk by half?

The awards ceremony took place on October 30, 1830 and the crowned cantata was performed. Berlioz had modified the work by adding a purely orchestral piece more in line with his musical thinking and describing the final fire. Unfortunately, the horn player who must play the note triggering the fire miscounts his empty measures and the fire “does not go away”. Berlioz writes: “It was yet another musical catastrophe and more cruel than any of those I had previously experienced... if it had been the last for me37. »

Although it does little to flatter Berlioz's self-esteem, this prize does represent official recognition. “It was a diploma, a title, and independence and almost comfort for five years38. »

Created on December 5 of the same year, his Symphonie Fantastique attracted public success39. After vain efforts to be exempted from the stay at the French Academy in Rome (Villa Medici) rewarding the laureates, it was therefore unfortunate that Berlioz left Paris on December 30, 1830.

It was during his stay that Marie-Félicité broke up with him to become engaged to Camille Pleyel, son of the famous composer and piano manufacturer Ignace Pleyel. Berlioz then decides to return to Paris with the plan of taking revenge by killing her but his escapade fortunately ends in Nice where he stays for a month (from April 20 to May 19, 1831), composing the overture to King Lear and sketching that by Rob Roy, before leaving for Rome40. “This is how I spent the twenty best days of my life in Nice. O Nizza41! »

During his stay in Rome, Berlioz wandered a lot and composed relatively little. “You have to, as you can see, almost give up hearing music when you live in Rome; I even came, in the midst of this anti-harmonic atmosphere, to no longer be able to compose. Everything I produced at the Academy is limited to three or four pieces: 1° an Overture by Rob-Roy, long and diffuse, performed in Paris a year later, very poorly received by the public, and which I burned on same day leaving the concert; 2° the Field Scene from my Fantastic Symphony, which I remade almost entirely while wandering around the Villa Borghese; 3° The Song of Happiness from my monodrama Lélio that I dreamed, treacherously lulled by my intimate enemy, the south wind, on the thick boxwoods cut into the wall of our classic garden; 4° this melody which is called La Captive, and whose fortune, when writing it, I was very far from foreseeing42. » He also met Mendelssohn, but Italy inspired and disappointed him at the same time. He returned to Paris definitively in November 1832.

Several of his works will nevertheless bear the imprint of Italy: his symphonies Harold in Italy (1834) and Roméo et Juliette (1839) but also his opera Benvenuto Cellini (1838).
A “quasi-official” composer (1831-1845)
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Back to Paris

Berlioz fell in love during a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet with an Irish actress who played in the play, Harriet Smithson. “The effect of her prodigious talent, or rather of her dramatic genius, on my imagination and on my heart, is only comparable to the upheaval that the poet of whom she was the worthy interpreter made me undergo43. » He married her in 1833 and a son, Louis, was born on August 14, 1834.

Louis Berlioz did not follow his father's career: he chose to be a sailor. First a midshipman in the navy, he then moved to the merchant navy, obtained a long-distance captain's certificate44, commanded the large mixed liner (sails and propeller) Louisiana of the very recent Compagnie Générale Transatlantique and died in Cuba. of yellow fever, at the age of 32, in 1866.

From 1834, Berlioz became known as a critic in the Gazette Musicale, then in the Journal des Débats, where he supported his musical system, which subordinated harmony to the search for expression. On these questions, we note above all that, in the Symphonie Fantastique as elsewhere, its harmonic language is of great originality and very often ignores established traditions.

The period 1840-1841 saw the composition of the Funeral and Triumphant Symphony and the cycle Les Nuits d'été for voice and piano on six poems by Théophile Gautier (Villanelle, Le Specter de la rose, Absence, Sur les lagunes, In the cemetery, The Unknown Island), which Berlioz subsequently orchestrated. His marriage, on the other hand, was a failure, and the couple separated. Shortly after, he began an affair with the singer Marie Recio45, whom he married after Harriet's death in 1854c.
A thwarted career (1846-1867)

During this period, Berlioz was recognized more as a conductor than as a composer, and was more appreciated abroad than in France. He directs his own works, but also works by his colleagues in Belgium, Germany, England, Hungary and Russia, accompanied by Marie. The Childhood of Christ was received triumphantly (1864). The English period of 1847-1848 was particularly fertile in adventures. Berlioz conducts the Drury Lane Orchestra in London, whose conductor is the composer Louis-Antoine Jullien, the king of promenade concerts and monster concerts. Jullien had requested the participation of Berlioz, and the latter cursed him after praising him. Louis-Antoine Jullien is a madman in more than one way46.

In 1847, on the advice of his friend Balzac, at a time when he was short of money, as was often the case47, he went on tour to Russia, where he won a triumph in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. He stayed with Grand Duchess Hélène, who welcomed him with pomp. At the concerts he leads in the Hall of the Assembly of the Nobility, he is encored up to twelve times! During his first encore, he exclaims: “I am saved!” ", to the second "I am rich! »48 He then conducted Romeo and Juliet, The Roman Carnival and the Funeral and Triumphant Symphony. He returned in 1867 to what he called “the proud capital of the North”.

In 1856, he began composing what some consider his magnum opus (his "great work"), Les Troyens, and wrote the libretto for this opera inspired by Virgil's Aeneid, a poet to whom it is also dedicated (the score in fact bears the dedication Diuo Virgilio “To the divine Virgil”). The genesis of his work dates back to his earliest childhood, and the influence of Virgil and Shakespeare are recurrent in his work. Les Troyens was completed two years later, but Berlioz could not perform them in their entirety, because the administrators were put off by the length of the work and the resources required.
Last years
Tomb of Hector Berlioz–Montmartre-Paris Cemetery
Grave of Hector Berlioz in the Montmartre cemetery (Paris).

In 1862, Berlioz composed the comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict, inspired by Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare, but he had to face the death of Marie the same year, then of his son Louis, in 1866. After a triumphant tour in Russia, during which he influenced the young Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, he made a trip to Nice in Mars 1868, where he was injured in a fall. In August 1868, he made his last trip to Grenoble, the town of residence of his sister and her family. Invited by Mayor Jean-Thomas Vendre on the occasion of three days of festivity organized for the inauguration of an equestrian statue of Napoleon I, he chaired a music festival.

He died on Mars 8, 1869 in Paris, at 4 rue de Calais, in the “New Athens” district (9th arrondissement of Paris). He rests in the Montmartre cemetery (Avenue Berlioz, 20th division, 1st line), with his two wives Harriet Smithson and Marie Recio49.
Holographic testament of Hector Berlioz, National Archives.

The Central Minute of Notaries of Paris, in the National Archives, keeps his holographic will, dated July 29, 1867 and accompanied by a codicil of June 12, 1868. An inventory of his property was drawn up following his death between May 5 and 18, 186950.
Primary works
Detailed article: Catalog of the works of Hector Berlioz.

Hector Berlioz left 124 musical works.
Symphonic music

    1830: Fantastic symphony, episode in the life of an artist, program symphony, op. 14
    1834: Harold in Italy, symphony concertante with principal viola, op. 16
    1839: Romeo and Juliet, dramatic symphony for soloists, choir and orchestra, op. 17
    1840: Funeral and triumphal symphony, op. 15

Hector Berlioz by Pierre Petit, photograph from 1863.
Opening
Detailed article: Overtures by Hector Berlioz.

    1828: Waverley, op. 1
    1831: King Lear, op. 4
    1831: Rob Roy
    1843–1844: The Roman Carnival, op. 9
    1844: Le Corsaire, op. 21
    1864: Trojan March

Lyrical music

    1823: Estelle and Némorin, lost
    1826–1833: Les Francs-juges, incomplete score, op. 3
    1834–1838: Benvenuto Cellini, op. 23
    1841-1847: The Bloody Nun, unfinished
    1846: The Damnation of Faust, dramatic legend, intended for concert, op. 24
    1856-1858: Les Troyens, op. 29
    1860-1862: Béatrice and Bénédict, op. 27

Choral and vocal music

    1824: Solemn mass, found in 1992 when Berlioz claimed to have destroyed it
    1829: The Death of Cleopatra
    1832: The Return to Life, second part of Episode from the Life of an Artist, later (in 1855) entitled Lélio or the Return to Life, lyrical monodrama, intended for concert, op. 14b
    1837: Great Mass for the Dead or Requiem, op. 5
    1840–1841: Summer Nights, op. 7
    1846: The Song of the Railways, op. 19 no. 3
    1849–1851: Tristia, op. 18
    1850–1854: The Childhood of Christ, sacred trilogy, intended for concert, op. 25
    1849–1855: Te Deum, op. 22

Analysis of the work
The four symphonies
From the Fantastic Symphony to Return to Life
Hector Berlioz, extract from the manuscript of the Symphonie Fantastique (1830), passage from "Passions"

As early as 1830, just six years after Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, still under the influence of Goethe's Faust which he had just read, Berlioz composed the Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14, which enthused Franz Liszt. It was created on December 5, 1830, in the conservatory room where his cantata Sardanapale was also performed, with which he won the Prix de Rome in 1830. “The execution was not impeccable, it was not with only two repetitions that one could obtain a perfect one for such complicated works. The whole, however, was sufficient to leave the main features. Three pieces of the symphony, Le Bal, La Marche au supplice and Le Sabbat, caused a great sensation. The March to torture especially shocked the room. The Scene in the Fields produced no effect. It bore little resemblance, it is true, to what it is today. I immediately resolved to rewrite it51. »

With this work, Berlioz will launch a completely new form of “descriptive music”, called “program music” and will have an important echo among musicians from Germanic countries (with the Hungarian Franz Liszt and later with the German Richard Strauss ). Subsequently, she will influence French music (Saint-Saëns, Dukas, Franck and d'Indy).

Lélio or Return to Life, was composed during Berlioz's stay at the Villa Medici and constitutes a sequel and complement to the Symphonie Fantastique (for this reason, Berlioz asked that this work be performed immediately after the Symphonie Fantastique). Lélio alternates singing, choirs and monologues. Berlioz drew elements from his earlier works, in particular The Death of Orpheus (1827) for the Song of Happiness and The Aeolian Harp and Shakespeare's Fantasy on the Tempest which he had written in 1830 before his departure for Rome. The text, composed by Berlioz himself, is about his then unrequited passion for the actress Harriet Smithson, as well as his views on art.

It was on December 9, 1832 in the Conservatory that Lélio was created, preceded by the Fantastique. Harriet Smithson, who was present at the concert, then agreed to be introduced to Berlioz52.
Harold in Italy

This symphony was written on the initiative of the violinist Niccolò Paganini. Indeed, the latter, claiming to be too ill to compose, asked Berlioz to write a piece for the Stradivarius alto that he had just acquired. When Berlioz offered him the first sketches of the work, the numerous pauses in the solo part caused the project to fail. Indeed, Paganini expected a concerto, which did not correspond to Berlioz's creative thinking. “Recognizing then that my plan could not suit him, I applied myself to executing it with another intention and without worrying any longer about the means of making the principal viola shine. I imagined writing a series of scenes for the orchestra, in which the solo viola would find itself involved as a more or less active character always retaining its own character; I wanted to play the viola, placing it in the midst of the poetic memories that my wanderings in Abruzzo had left me, a sort of melancholic dreamer in the style of Byron's Childe Harold. Hence the title of the symphony: Harold in Italy53. »

This symphony consists of four movements: Harold in the Mountains, Pilgrims' March, Serenade and Orgy of the Brigands. It was created on November 23, 1834, in the Conservatory room, then performed again on December 14 and 28, 1834 under the direction of Girard. It was on this occasion that, faced with Girard's errors in direction, Berlioz made the decision to conduct his works himself, thus becoming a conductor recognized both in France and at European level.

Paganini heard the work in concert on December 16, 1838. His enthusiasm was such that he donated 20,000 francs to Berlioz, which allowed him to devote himself to his third symphony Roméo et Juliette.
Romeo and Juliet

“Ah! this time, no more serials, or at least almost no more, I had money, Paganini had given it to me to make music and I did. I worked on my symphony for seven months without stopping for more than three or four days out of thirty. […] Finally, after quite a long hesitation, I settled on the idea of ​​a symphony with choirs, singing solos and choral recitative, of which Shakespeare's drama, Romeo and Juliet, would be the sublime and always new subject . I wrote in prose all the text intended for singing between the pieces of instrumental music; Émile Deschamps, with his charming kindness and his extraordinary ease, put it into verse, and I began54. »

The first audition took place on November 24, 1839, in the Conservatoire hall under the direction of Berlioz (200 performers), followed by two others, on December 1 and 15, 1839. Richard Wagner, present at one of these auditions, wrote in his memoirs55: “It was undoubtedly a whole new world for me....First of all, I was almost dizzy by the power of a virtuosity of orchestra which I still had no idea about. The fantastic boldness and severe precision with which we approached the most daring combinations made them seem palpable.” The success is great. Berlioz reports in his letter of November 26, 1839, addressed to his father: “The crowds were such that the office was refused rental for more than fifteen hundred francs... This is probably the greatest success I have ever had. got… Balzac told me this morning: “Your concert hall was a brain”. In fact, all the intelligent notables of Paris could be seen there56. »
Funeral and triumphal symphony

The Funeral and Triumphal Symphony was commissioned by the Minister of the Interior, Charles de Rémusat, for the transfer of the victims of the three days of the 1830 revolution to the monument which had just been erected on the Place de la Bastille, the column of the Bastille. Intended to be performed outdoors (at least for the first time), this symphony is designed for a mass of wind instruments and percussion (Berlioz uses a Chinese hat in particular). It consists of three movements: Funeral March, Funeral Oration and Apotheosis, the last two following each other without interruption. Berlioz subsequently added a string orchestra and choir in the finale of the Apothéose. Both versions are still performed in concert. Richard Wagner commented on it as follows: “I would really have no reluctance to give this composition precedence over the other works of Berlioz: it is noble and grand from the first to the last note…; a sublime patriotic enthusiasm, which rises from the tone of lamentation to the highest peaks of apotheosis, keeps this work from any unhealthy exaltation. »57
Lyrical works
Benvenuto Cellini
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The cabal atmosphere organized by Berlioz's adversaries for his entry into the Paris Opera with Benvenuto Cellini in 1838 led to the failure of the performances. However, his commitment to the Conservatoire library and Paganini's esteem for him allowed him to write Romeo and Juliet.
The Damnation of Faust

Reading Goethe's Faust inspired Berlioz to write Eight Scenes from Faust in 1828. “I must also point out as one of the remarkable incidents of my life, the strange and profound impression I received when reading for the first time Goethe's Faust translated into French by Gérard de Nerval. The wonderful book fascinated me at first glance; I never left him again; […] This prose translation contained some versified fragments, songs, hymns, etc. I gave in to the temptation to put them to music […] A few copies of this work, published in Paris under the title of Eight Scenes of Faust, were thus distributed58. »

Berlioz, finding “numerous and enormous faults” in this “incomplete and very poorly written” work58, disowned it. “As soon as I was convinced on this point, I hastened to collect all the copies of the Eight Scenes of Faust that I could find and I destroyed them58. »

It was in 1845, during a trip to Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Silesia that Berlioz returned to his 1828 project. The libretto, made up of retouched fragments used in the Eight Scenes of Faust, to which he adds two or three scenes written by M. Gandonnière58, is completed by verses by Berlioz. He composed this work with great ease, not looking for ideas but letting them come unexpectedly. In an inn in Passau, on the borders of Bavaria, he composed the introduction “The old winter has given way to spring”; in Vienna on the banks of the Elbe, the tune of Méphistophélès “Here are roses”; in Pesth, in the light of a shop's gas burner, the Peasants' Round; in Prague, he got up in the middle of the night to note the chorus of angels in Marguerite's apotheosis “Go back to heaven, naive soul”; in Breslau he designed the words and music for the students' Latin song “Jam nox stellata velalina pandit”. The extraordinary effect produced by Rákóczy's march on the Hungarian theme, performed in Pesth on February 15, 1846, convinced Berlioz to introduce it into his new work.

The first and second auditions of The Damnation of Faust, a dramatic legend in 4 parts took place on December 6 and 20, 1846 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in front of half-empty rooms. The columnist of the satirical newspaper Le Charivari reports in a witty line: "The Rat Song will go unnoticed, since there is not a cat in the room." Berlioz, who had invested everything in the company, found himself ruined and then planned to escape with a tour of Russia. Berlioz considered an adaptation for the stage which did not come to fruition. The first production produced by Raoul Gunsbourg at the Monte-Carlo Opera on Mars 7, 1893 was a great success. Since then, the work has been performed in its two versions, in concert or with productions.
The Childhood of Christ

The Childhood of Christ has its origins in a mystification. During an evening spent with his friend the architect Joseph-Louis Duc, Berlioz, who hated card games, showed such boredom that he was asked to compose a musical piece to keep himself busy. A first organ piece was created, to which the author added lyrics and which became The Farewell of the Shepherds to the Holy Family. The form close to medieval mysteries, and the desire undoubtedly to mystify the Parisian critics hostile to his music, pushes Berlioz to attribute it to a certain Pierre Ducré, a musician who lived in the 18th century and whose manuscript Berlioz would have found at the Conservatory library. The score therefore bears the words “The Farewell of the Shepherds to the Holy Family. Fragment of the Flight into Egypt, mystery in 6 acts by Pierre Ducré, music master of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, 1679.” In his letter to Théophile Gautier on December 18, 1853, Berlioz recounts the creation of this piece: “The Choir of the Shepherds was performed in Paris in two concerts of the New Philharmonic Society under the name of Pierre Ducré, chapel master of my invention who did not live in the 17th century. The choir was very successful with people, especially those who do me the honor of hating me59. » On May 30, 1853, Berlioz conducted the 6th concert of the Old Philharmonic Society of London where he performed Le Repos de la Sainte Famille for the first time59. The success was such that Berlioz decided to complete his work.

L'Enfance du Christ, whose lyrics are also by Berlioz, is ultimately composed of three parts: Le Songe d'Hérode (completed on July 27, 1854), La Flight into Egypt (given in concert on December 18, 1853 in Paris)59 and Arrival at Sais. The first hearing in its entirety was given during the concert on December 10, 1854 in the Herz Hall under the title “The Childhood of Christ, sacred trilogy, words and music by MH Berlioz. »59 The success was unanimous and unworthy of Berlioz, who found it slanderous for his previous works: “Several people thought they saw in this score a complete change in my style and manner. Nothing is less founded than this opinion. The subject naturally led to a naive and gentle music, and therefore more in line with their taste and their intelligence, which, over time, must also have developed. I would have written The Childhood of Christ in the same way twenty years ago. »
The Trojans

The 5-act opera Les Troyens is largely inspired by books II and IV of Virgil's Aeneid (Hector Berlioz's bedside book since his childhood). This opera represents the most ambitious of all Hector Berlioz's creations and is considered a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire.
Religious music
Solemn mass

Mr. Masson, chapel master of the church of Saint-Roch, asked Berlioz to write a solemn mass which he would have performed on Saints-Innocents' Day, the patronal feast of altar boys. The copy was entrusted to his young students and it was Henri Valentino then at the head of the Opera orchestra, who was to direct it thanks to the intervention of Lesueur. On December 27, 1824 the general rehearsal was a fiasco: “it turned out that we had altogether twenty choristers, including fifteen tenors and five basses, twelve children, nine violins, a viola, an oboe, a horn and a bassoon.. . Valentino, resigned, gives the signal, we begin; but, after a few moments, you have to stop because of the countless copying errors that everyone points out in the parts. Here we forgot to write the flats and sharps in the key; there ten pauses are missing; further on we omitted thirty measures. It's a waste not to recognize yourself,... This lesson at least was not lost. The little of my unfortunate composition that I had heard, having made me discover its most salient faults, I immediately took a radical resolution in which Valentino strengthened me, promising not to abandon me, when he would act later to take my revenge. I repeated this mass almost entirely29. ". The execution which was to take place the next day was postponed.

Thanks to a loan of 1,200 francs taken out from Augustin de Pons and after having copied the parts himself, Berlioz had the new version of his Messe solennelle performed in Saint-Roch on July 10, 1825. His master declared to him: “Come and let me kiss you; morbleu! you will be neither a doctor nor an apothecary, but a great composer; you have genius, I tell you because it’s true; there are too many notes in your mass, you have let yourself be carried away, but, through all its petulance of ideas, not an intention is missed, all your paintings are true; it has an inconceivable effect. »60 »

Having never been published, the work was long considered lost until the choir director and organist Frans Moors found by chance the autograph manuscript (which Berlioz had claimed to have burned) in 1991 at the church of Saint- Charles Borromeo of Antwerp61. Recreated on October 3, 1993 under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner in the Saint Petri Church in Bremen, it was published for the first time in 1994 in the New Berlioz Edition by Bärenreiter.

Bärenreiter having granted the rights of the French creation and the first world recording of the work to the production structure Opéra d'Automne, the French creation took place on October 7, 1993 in the Sainte-Madeleine basilica of Vézelay, under the direction of Jean-Paul Penin, at the head of the orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Krakow, under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic and UNESCO (World Heritage Directorate). The performers were: Christa Pfeiler (mezzo-soprano), (Ruben Velasquez (tenor), Jacques Perroni (bass-baritone) and the choir director, Jacek Mentl. The same evening a second performance took place, for the purposes of recording by France Télévision (France 3) and France Musique (recording published by Musidisc-March 1994)62,63. The following year, the Messe Solennelle was given at the Berlioz festival on the Côte Saint-André, still under the direction of Jean-Paul Penin, with the orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Krakow. With the support of UNESCO, the French embassies in Paraguay and Argentina, the American creation of the Messe Solennelle took place in the Jesuit mission of Encarnaçion, then at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra), under the direction of the same leader.
Requiem
Berlioz, before 1864.
Photo by Charles Reutlinger.

Just as anticlerical as King Louis-Philippe, Berlioz nevertheless wrote music of religious inspiration. This is above all marked by a theatricalization far removed from the liturgical spirit.

While he was considered throughout Europe as a romantic hero, turned towards Germany (but with a very “personal”, unique language), Berlioz in fact had many enemies in Paris. German Romanticism had not yet taken root in France where French and Italian inspiration still remained very present, as in previous centuries. As a result, musical art could be subject to politics, power, alliances and betrayals...

In Mars 1837 Berlioz obtained a commission on the proposal of the Minister of the Interior, Adrien de Gasparin64, (to whom the requiem was dedicated) for a mass for the dead, with funds from the Department of Fine Arts. Supporters of the director of the Conservatory, Luigi Cherubini, tried in vain to have the contract terminated. From a purely musical point of view, Berlioz was too unusual and too close to the Romantic movement. After he had completed the work (in less than three months) and arrangements had been made for the concert premiere, the ministry canceled it, without explanation.

The Requiem, however, had its chance, thanks to the solemn service organized at the Hôtel des Invalides for the burial of General Damrémont65. On December 5, 1837, it was performed in the Invalides chapel, decorated with thousands of candles for the occasion, in the presence of the royal family, the diplomatic corps and all of Parisian high society; Berlioz had obtained one hundred and ninety instrumentalists, two hundred and ten choristers, four brass ensembles placed in the corners of the chapel, as well as sixteen timpani.

    “At the moment of [the entry of the four brass orchestras], at the beginning of the Tuba mirum which follows without interruption with the Dies irae, the movement widens by double; all the brass instruments first burst out together in the new movement, then call out to and respond to each other at a distance, with successive entries, a third higher than each other. It is therefore of the utmost importance to clearly indicate the four beats of the big measure at the moment it occurs. Otherwise this terrible musical cataclysm, prepared for so long, where exceptional and formidable means are used in proportions and combinations that no one had attempted then and has tried since, this musical tableau of the Last Judgment, which will remain , I hope, as something great in our art can only produce an immense and terrible cacophony.

    As a result of my usual distrust, I remained behind Habeneck and, turning my back on him, I watched the group of timpanists, whom he could not see, the moment approaching when they were going to take part in the general melee. There are perhaps a thousand bars in my Requiem. Precisely on the one I have just spoken about, the one where the movement broadens, the one where the brass instruments launch their terrible fanfare, on the single measure finally in which the action of the conductor is absolutely essential, Habeneck lowers his stick, calmly pulls out his snuffbox and begins to take a bite of tobacco. I always had my eye on him; Instantly I pivot quickly on one heel, and springing up in front of him, I extend my arm and mark the four main beats of the new movement. The orchestras follow me, everything starts in order, I lead the piece to the end, and the effect I had dreamed of is produced. When, at the last words of the choir, Habeneck saw the Tuba mirum saved: “What a cold sweat I had,” he said to me, “without you we were lost! “Yes, I know that,” I replied, looking at him fixedly. I didn't add a word […] Did he do it on purpose? Would it be possible that this man, in agreement with Mr. XX., who hated me, and Cherubini's friends, had dared to meditate and attempt to commit such base villainy? I don't want to think about it... But I don't doubt it. God forgive me if I insult him. »

— Hector Berlioz, Memoirs, op. cit., chap. XLVI.

The Requiem brought Berlioz critical and public success. Berlioz wrote on January 11, 1867 to Humbert Ferrand66: “If I were threatened with seeing my entire work burned, minus a score, it would be for the Mass of the Dead that I would ask for mercy. »
Te Deum

The Te Deum was composed between November-December 1848 and August-September 1849. Berlioz was waiting for a big ceremony to create it. In 1852, he hoped for a moment to have him executed for the coronation of Napoleon III; but this event not having succeeded, it was finally at the inauguration of the Universal Exhibition on April 30, 1855, that he was heard for the first time in Saint-Eustache under his direction. It was a grandiose performance with 900 performers and an organ specially created for the occasion. The work borrows several passages from his Messe solennelle (in particular the theme of Agnus Dei), written twenty-five years earlier, and from the composer's unfinished scores. The Te Deum is composed of several movements, called Hymns or Prayers by Berlioz:

    Te Deum (Hymn)
    Tibi omnes (Hymn)
    Prelude for orchestra. Worthy (Prayer)
    Christe, Rex gloriae (Hymn)
    Te ergo quaesumus (Prayer)
    Judex crederis (Hymn and prayer)
    March for the presentation of the flags, for orchestra

Regarding the Prelude, Berlioz specifies: “If the Te Deum is not performed in a ceremony of thanksgiving for a victory or any other rallying in some way to military ideas, this prelude will not be performed67 . » In a letter to Liszt on April 14, 185528, he wrote: “Regarding the Te Deum, I have purely and simply deleted the prelude where the doubtful modulations are found. » This was neither published nor performed during Berlioz's lifetime.

It is not the same with the March movement for the presentation of the flags, requiring, at the request of the author, the presence of 12 harps and therefore often omitted in the recordings. The movement was, however, well executed at the creation of the Te Deum in 1855.

This creation was crowned with success. In Le Pays, Journal de l'Empire, Escudier reports in his musical serial of May 1: “grandiose work which produced an immense effect […] This pompous song of thanksgiving has gigantic proportions, […] new proof of his genius68. »
Melodies
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Instrumentation and orchestration
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The Beethovenian and Shakespearean themes, which intersect throughout Berlioz's production, have strongly marked his work. To this must be added the attachment he had to the reform of French opera, which had developed at the initiative of Gluck, under the reigns of Louis classical era (at the beginning of the third third of the 18th century). Above all, we should not forget Berlioz's taste for the music of the revolutionary period and the Empire (note that this in no way prevented him from being a monarchist: romanticism developed in France at the time of King Louis -Philippe I, Orleanist monarch and therefore favorable to the constitutional monarchy that the beginnings of the Revolution had established).

This is how Berlioz authored an orchestration of La Marseillaise, still often heard today. But he is also (and above all) a great romantic figure with devastating humor, but very rigorous in his writing and very exalted in his execution. His work will gradually emerge from the academic musical form of his time to move towards orchestrations of great richness of timbres and colors, very personal contrapuntal writing and a penchant for very large orchestral formations. His desire for freedom led him to free himself from the texts he set to music, to the point of writing them himself, as Richard Wagner also did.

Without falling into the exaggeration that prevailed at the time, Berlioz was extremely interested in the nature of stamps. He was also a friend of Adolphe Sax, whose work he strongly encouraged, particularly that concerning the saxophone family.

Irreducible to any school, Berlioz's music is of great originality. However, despite the considerable success achieved abroad, his work remained for a long time unknown in his own country, even underappreciated, apart from certain extracts from the Damnation of Faust and, of course, the Symphonie Fantastique, which made the subject of superb and timeless recordings by Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch and Igor Markevitch.

Berlioz's work has, however, been warmly received in Germany, from the first representations of Les Troyens by Félix Mottl, at the end of the 19th century, to Rafael Kubelík, who was the architect of its resurrection in the 1990s. 1960. Since then, the Germans have not hesitated to organize Berlioz conferences in their country, for example in Essen-Werden, in June 2003, under the initiative of Hermann Hofer and Matthias Brzoska. In recent years, Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini have become part of the regular repertoire of Dresden, Leipzig, Mannheim, Hamburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen.

In France, under the direction of Serge Baudo, Lyon hosted the international Hector-Berlioz festival for some ten years. This festival now takes place in La Côte-Saint-André (Isère), Berlioz's hometown. In addition, it was the lyrical work Les Troyens which was presented at the inauguration of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, in Mars 1990.
Gallery

    Musical influences
    Portrait of Gluck

    Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)
    Portrait of Weber

    Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
    Portrait of Beethoven

    Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
    Portrait of Spontini

    Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851)

    Artistic friendships
    Portrait of Mendelssohn

    Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
    Portrait of Schumann

    Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
    Sepia photograph of Brahms

    Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
    Photography by Glinka

    Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
    Photography by Balakirev

    Mili Balakirev (1837-1910)
    Photograph of Borodin

    Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
    Photograph of Mussorgsky

    Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
    Photograph by Rimsky-Korsakov

    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
    Portrait of Meyerbeer

    Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
    Photography by Gounod

    Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
    Photograph by Bizet

    Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
    Photography by Saint-Saëns

    Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

Posterity

After the Second World War, at a time when Berlioz was best known to the general public as the author of the Symphonie Fantastique and the Roman Carnival overture, several conductors worked to rehabilitate him, Arturo Toscanini in Italy, Igor Markevitch in Germany, Dimitri Mitropoulos in the United States, Sir John Barbirolli in England and the United States, conducting much of his other compositions. Thomas Beecham gave the first, almost complete, performance of Les Troyens in 1947, before releasing Harold in Italy (1951), then the Te Deum (1953). In 1957 Rafael Kubelík recorded Les Troyens in its entirety (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), but in English, a second time in 1962, in Italian (La Scala production). In 1964, Ernest Ansermet recorded a reference version of Nuits d'été with Régine Crespin. On the occasion of the centenary of the composer's death (1969), Colin Davis undertakes a “Complete Berlioz” for the Philips label. In the 2000s, he recorded a Berlioz cycle again with the LSO. This approach was continued by John Eliot Gardiner, who recorded Les Troyens at the Théâtre du Châtelet with the Orchester Révolutionnaire et Romantique on the occasion of the bicentenary of the composer's birth. Sergiu Celibidache, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Bernstein, Riccardo Muti, Adrian Boult, Alexander Gibson, Roger Norrington, Eliahu Inbal, André Previn, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, Valeri Guerguiev, Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson Thomas, Antonio Pappano, John Nelson, Robin Ticciati have recorded numerous works by Berlioz. In 2018, John Nelson recorded Les Troyens with the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Requiem in 2019 with Le LSO. Philippe Jordan conducts Berlioz's operas on stage, including Les Troyens in 2019 on the occasion of the celebration of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the composer's death.

In France, the first Berlioz Festival was created in 1979 in Lyon under the aegis of Serge Baudo. It was transferred in 1994 to La Côte-Saint-André, the composer's hometown, where it takes place every year during the months of August and September. In 2003 the birthplace (classified as a historic monument in 1942) was rehabilitated and became a Museum of France, part of the National Federation of Writers' Houses and Literary Heritage.

Various conductors, like their foreign colleagues, have also endeavored to defend his scores, starting with Pierre Monteux, Paul Paray and especially Charles Munch, who made numerous recordings of his works, Georges Sébastian, André Cluytens, Jean Martinon, Jean Fournet and Louis Frémaux, themselves followed by Georges Prêtre, Pierre Boulez, Serge Baudo and Michel Plasson. In the 21st century, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Sylvain Cambreling, Jean-Paul Penin and even Marc Minkowski and François-Xavier Roth have taken over from their elders.

In 1985, The Roman Carnival, an overture based on themes from his opera Benvenuto Cellini, was performed at the New Year's concert in Vienna, under the direction of Lorin Maazel. This is the only time a work by Berlioz is heard during this traditional concert.

In 1969, on the hundredth anniversary of his death, André Malraux, then Minister of Culture, decided to transfer his ashes to the Pantheon, a decision without follow-up. In 2003, for the bicentenary of his birth, under the presidency of Catherine Massip, the project was once again on the agenda but remained without effect. In 2019, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death and at the initiative of Bruno Messina, artistic director of the Berlioz Festival, the transfer of Berlioz's ashes to the Pantheon is being considered for the third time (to be continued...) . As part of this celebration, on February 1, 2019, a box set of 27 CDs representing for the first time the recording of all his works (Warner Classics label, presentation text by David Cairns) was released. Shock of Classica, he also obtains a Diapason d'or.
Honors

    Knight of the Legion of Honor Knight of the Legion of Honor, May 10, 183969;
    Officer of the Legion of Honor Officer of the Legion of Honor, August 12, 186470,71;
    Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia, June 4, 184772;
    Order of the Saxon White Falcon