User:Lethesl/My other sandbox

Biography

Early years

Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, between Lyon and Grenoble on 11 December, 1803. His father was a respected provincial physician and scholar and was responsible for much of the young Berlioz's education. His father was an atheist, with a liberal outlook, while his mother an orthodox Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood. The other two, Nanci and Adèle, enjoyed Berlioz's permenent affection. Berlioz did not begin his study in music until the age of twelve, when he began writing small compositions and arrangements. By this age he has also learnt to read Virgil in Latin and translate it into French under his fathers tuition. Unlike other composers of the time, he was not a child prodigy, and never learned to play the piano, although he played the flute and guitar as a boy. He learnt harmony by textbooks alone - he was not formally trained. Still at the age of twelve, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced his first passion for a woman, an 18 year old next door neighbour named Estelle Fornier (née Dubœuf). The majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces. Berlioz appears to have been innately romantic, experiencing emotions deeply - this characteristic manifesting itself in his love affairs, adoration of great romantic literature, and his weeping at passages by Virgil, Shakespeare, and Beethoven.

Student life

Paris

Drawing of Harriet Smithson as Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet

In 1821 at the age of eighteen, Berlioz was sent to Paris to study medicine, a field in which he had no interest, and later, outright disgust towards after viewing a human corpse being dissected, which he later detailed in a colourful account in his Mémoires. He began to take advantage of the institutions he now had access to in the city, including his first visit to the Paris Opéra, where he saw Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck, a composer whom he admired greatly. He also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, where he sought out scores of Gluck's operas, and made personal copies of parts of them. His Mémoires recall his first encounter in that library with the Conservatoire's then music director Luigi Cherubini, in which Cherubini attempted to throw out the impetuous Berlioz, who was not a formal music student. Berlioz also hears two operas by Spontini, a composer who he later championed when working as a critic. From then on, he devotes himself to composition, encouraged by Jean-François Lesueur, director of the Royal Chapel and professor at the Conservatoire. In 1823, he writes his first article in the form of a letter to the journal Le Corsaire defending Spontini's La Vestale. By now he had composed several works including Estelle et Némorin and Le Passage de la mer Rouge (The Crossing of the Red Sea) - both now lost - the latter of which convinced Lesueur to take Berlioz on as one of his private pupils.

Despite his parents disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his medical studies to pursue a career in music. He composes the Messe solennelle, which is rehearsed, and revised after the rehearsal, but not performed again until the following year. Berlioz later claimed to have burnt the score, but it was miraculously re-discovered in 1991. Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose Les francs-juges, which was completed the following year but went unperformed. The work survives only in fragments. The overture is sometimes played in concert. In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire to study composition under Lesueur and Anton Reicha. He also submits a fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round. The prize would become an obsession for him until he wins it in 1830, and until then, he submits a new cantata every year until his fourth succeeds. The reason for this interest in the prize was not just academic recognition, but because part of the prize was a five year pension - much needed income for the struggling composer. In 1827 he composes the Waverly overture after Walter Scott's Waverley novels. He also began working as a chorus singer at a vaudeville theatre to contribute towards an income. Later that year, he sees his future wife Harriet Smithson at the Odéon theatre playing Ophelia and Juliet in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. He immediately becomes infatuated by both actress and playwright. From then on, he began to send Harriet messages, but she considered Berlioz's letters introducing himself to her so overly passionate that she refused his advances.

In 1828 Berlioz hears Beethoven's third and fifth symphonies performed at the Paris Conservatoire - an experience which he found intensely overwhelming. He also reads Goethe's Faust for the first time, which will immediately become the inspiration for Huit scènes de Faust (his Opus 1), which would much later be re-developed into La Damnation de Faust. He also comes into contact with Beethoven's string quartets and piano sonatas, and recognised the importance of these immediately. He also began to study English so that he could read Shakespeare - at the same time he also began to write musical criticism. He begins and finishes composition of the Symphonie Fantastique in 1830, a work which will bring Berlioz much fame and notoriety. Enters into a relationship with - and subsequently engages - Camille Moke, despite the symphony being inspired by Berlioz's obsession with Harriet Smithson. As his fourth cantata to submit to the Prix de Rome neared completion, the July Revolution broke out. "I was finishing my cantata when the Revolution broke out," he recorded in his Mémoires. "I dashed off the final pages of my orchestral score to the sound of stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering on the wall outside my window. On the 29th I had finished, and was free to go out and roam about Paris 'till morning, pistol in hand". Shortly later, he finally wins the prize after five attempts with that cantata, Sardanapale. He also arranges the French national anthem La Marseillaise as well as composes an overture to Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was the first of his pieces to play at the Paris Opéra, but an hour before the performance began, quite ironically, a sudden storm created the worst rain in Paris for 50 years, meaning the performance was almost deserted. Berlioz meets Franz Liszt who was also attending the concert. This proved to be the beginning of a long friendship, including Liszt transcribing the entire Symphonie Fantastique for piano to enable more people to hear it.

Italy

On the 30 December, Berlioz travelled to Italy as a clause in the Prix de Rome award required a winner to remain in Italy for two years. While sailing there, he met a group of Carbonari, a secret society of Italian patriots based in France, acting towards creating a unified Italy. He actually only spent 15 months in Italy between 1831 and 1832, but they were an important inspiration to his music writing even after his return to France. The later Harold en Italie (1934) in particular is indebted to his time spent there. In Rome he stayed at the French Academy in the Villa Medici, and he travelled out of Rome as often as possible. He found the city to his distaste, writing "Rome is the most stupid and prosaic city I know: it is no place for anyone with head or heart". While in Italy he recieved a letter from the mother of his fiancé informing him that she had called off their engagement and married Camille Pleyel (son of Ignaz Pleyel), a rich piano manufacturer. Berlioz decides to return to Paris to take revenge and kill all three – and concieves an elaborate plan in which to do so. He purchased a dress, hat (with veil) and wig, which he was to use to disguise himself as a woman to gain entry to their building, before killing each of them with a shot of his pistol, saving one shot for himself. He then stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols from the Academy. He also purchased phials of strychnine and laudanum to use as poisons in the event of a pistol jamming. By the time he had reached Genoa by mail coach, he realised that he had left his disguise in the side pocket of a carriage he had later moved from due to a swap at a previous station. By the time he arrives in Nice (at the time part of Italy) he realises that his plan was inappropriate, and he sends a letter to the Academy, requesting that he may return. His request was accepted.

While in Nice he composes the overtures to King Lear and Rob Roy, and began work on a sequel to the Symphonie Fantastique, Le retour à la vie (The Return to Life), renamed Lélio in 1855. Some time ago in Rome, Emile Signol had drawn a portrait of Berlioz, which Berlioz did not consider to be a good likeness of himself. The portrait was finished in its final painted form in April 1832. By the time Berlioz leaves Italy, he has visited Pompeii, Naples, Milan, Tivoli and Genoa. Italy was important in providing Berlioz with experiences that would be impossible in France, at times, it was as if he was experiencing the Romantic tales of Byron in person, mixing with brigands, corsairs, and peasants. On November 1832 he returned to Paris to promote his music.

Painting of Berlioz by Emile Signol, 1832. Owned by Villa Medici. Also in a reproduction by Paul Siffert, 1907. Owned by Musée Hector Berlioz

Decade of productivity

The decade between 1830 and 1840 saw Berlioz write much of his most popular and enduring works. The foremost of these are Symphonie Fantastique (1830), Harold en Italie (1834), Grande Messe des morts (1837) and Roméo et Juliette (1839).

In Paris, Berlioz meets Ernest Legouvé who becomes a lifelong friend. On 9 December a concert of Symphonie Fantastique and Lélio is performed, with among others in attendance: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Heinrich Heine, Niccolò Paganini, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, Alfred de Vigny, Théophile Gautier, Jules Janin and Harriet Smithson. A few days later, he and Harriet are introduced, and enter into a relationship. Despite Berlioz not understanding spoken English and Harriet not knowing any French, on 3rd October 1833, he and Harriet married at the British Embassy in Paris with Liszt as one of the witnesses, and next year their first child, Louis Berlioz, is born - a source of initial disappointment and anxiety, and eventual pride to his father.

In 1834, virtuoso violinist and composer Paganini commissioned Berlioz to compose a viola concerto, intending to premiere it as soloist. This became the symphony for viola and orchestra, Harold en Italie. However, Paganini changed his mind when he saw the first sketches for the work, saying that he must be playing all the time, and with misgivings over its lack of complexity. The premiere of the piece was held later that year, and some time after this performance, he decided to conduct much of his own concerts from then on. Berlioz composed the opera Benvenuto Cellini in 1836, and later that year he attended the premiere of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. The piece which follows is one of his most enduring, the Grand messe des morts, which was first performed at Les Invalides in December of that year. Its gestation was difficult due to the nature of the commission - as it was paid for by the state, much bureaucracy had to be endured. There was also opposition from Luigi Cherubini, who was at the time the music director of the Paris Conservatoire. Cherubini felt that a government-sponsored commission should naturally be offered to him rather than the young Berlioz, who was considered an eccentric. (It should be noted, however, that regardless of the animosity between the two composers, Berlioz learned from and admired Cherubini's music, such as the requiem.) Berlioz's mother dies on 18 February. Benvenuto Cellini is premiered at the Paris Opéra on 10 September, but is a failure due to a hostile audience. After initially rejecting the piece, after hearing Harold en Italie for the first time, Paganini, as Berlioz's Mémoires recount, knelt before Berlioz in front of the orchestra and proclaimed him a genius and heir to Beethoven. The next day he sent Berlioz a gift of 20,000 francs, the generosity of which left Berlioz uncharacteristically lost for words.

Thanks to money that Paganini had given him, Berlioz was able to pay off Harriet's and his own debts and suspend his work as a critic in order to focus on writing the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette for voices, chorus and orchestra. Berlioz later identified Roméo et Juliette as his favourite piece among his own musical compositions. (He considered his Requiem his best work, however: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I should crave mercy for the Messe des Morts.") It was a success both at home and abroad, unlike later great vocal works such as La Damnation de Faust and Les Troyens, which were commercial failures. Roméo et Juliette was premiered in a series of three concerts later in 1839 to distinguished audiences, one including Richard Wagner. The same year, Berlioz is appointed Deputy Librarian (Conservateur adjoint) Paris Conservatoire Library. Berlioz supported himself and his family by writing musical criticism for Paris publications, primarily Journal des Débats for over thirty years, and also Gazette musicale. While his career as a critic and writer provided him with a comfortable income, and he had an obvious talent for writing, he came to detest the amount of time required in attending performances to review later, as it severely limited his free time to promote his own composition and produce more compositions. It should also be noted that despite his prominent position in musical criticism, he didn't use his articles to promote his own works.

Mid-life

Painting of Berlioz by Gustave Courbet, 1850. Owned by Musée d’Orsay in Paris (incorrectly shaded scan: colours faded)

After the 1830s, Berlioz found it more difficult to achieve positive recognition for his music in France, and as a result, he began to travel to other countries with greater frequency. During his lifetime, Berlioz was as famous a conductor as he was as a composer. Between 1842 and 1863 he traveled to Germany, England, Austria, Russia and elsewhere, where he conducted operas and orchestral music - both his own and others.

In 1840, the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale is commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution of 1830. Due to the strict deadline, it was performed only days after it was completed. The performance was in open air on 28 July, conducted by Berlioz himself, at the Place de la Bastille, in honour of the victims of the revolution. Next year he begins but later abandons the composition of a new opera, La Nonne sanglante, of which some fragments survive. In 1841, Berlioz writes recitatives for a production of Weber's Der Freischütz at the Paris Opéra, and also orchestrates Weber’s Invitation à la valse to add ballet music to it. Later that year Berlioz finishes composing Les nuits d'été for piano and voices (later to be orchestrated in a revision). He also enters into a relationship with Marie Recio, a singer, who would become his second wife.

In 1842, Berlioz embarked on a concert tour of Brussels, Belgium from September to October. In December he began a tour in Germany which continued until the middle of next year. Towns visited include: Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Weimar, Hechingen, Darmstadt, Dresden, Brunswick, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Mannheim. On this tour he met Mendelssohn and Schumann (who had written an enthusiastic article on the Symphonie fantastique) in Leipzig, Marschner in Hanover, Wagner in Dresden, Meyerbeer in Berlin. Back in Paris, Berlioz began to compose the concert overture Le Carnaval romain, based on music from act I of Benvenuto Cellini. The work was finished the following year and was premiered shortly after. Nowadays it is among the most popular of his overtures.

In early 1844, Berlioz's highly influential Treatise on Instrumentation was published for the first time. At this time Berlioz was producing several serialisations for music journals which would eventially be collected into his Mémoires and Les Soirées de l’Orchestre (Evenings with the Orchestra). He takes a recouperation trip to Nice late that year, during which he composed the concert overture La Tour de Nice (The Tower of Nice), later to be revised and renamed Le Corsaire. Berlioz seperates with his wife Harriet Smithson, who had long since been suffering from alcohol abuse due to her acting career having failed, and moves in with Marie Recio. He continues to provide for Harriet throughout her life. He also met Mikhail Glinka (who he had initially met in Italy and remained a close friend), who was in Paris between 1844-45, and persuaded Berlioz to embark on one of two tours of Russia. Berlioz's joke "If the Emperor of Russia wants me, then I am up for sale" was taken seriously. The two tours of Russia (the second in 1867) proved so financially successful that they secured Berlioz's finances despite the large amounts of money he was losing in writing unsuccessful compositions. In 1845 he embarks on his first large-scale concert tour of France. He also attends and writes a report on the inauguration of a statue to Beethoven in Bonn, and begins composing La Damnation de Faust, incorporating the earlier Huit scènes de Faust. On return to Paris, the recently completed La Damnation de Faust is premiered at the Opéra-Comique, but after two performances, the run is not continued and the work is a popular failure (perhaps due to its halfway status between opera and oratorio), despite recieving generally favourable critical reviews. This leaves Berlioz heavily in debt to the tune of 5-6000 francs. Becoming ever more disenchanted with his prospects in France, he writes:

“ Great success, great profit, great performances, etc. etc. … France is becoming more and more philistine towards music, and the more I see of foreign lands the less I love my own. Art, in France, is dead; so I must go where it is still to be found. In England apparently there has been a real revolution in the musical consciousness of the nation in the last ten years. We shall see. ”

In 1847, during a seven month visit to England, he was appointed conductor at the London Drury-Lane Theatre by its then-musical director, the popular French musician Louis-Antoine Jullien. He was impressed with its quality when he first heard the orchestra perform at a promenade concert. In London he also learnt that he knew far more English than he had supposed, although still did not understand half of what was said in conversation. He begins to start writing his Mémoires. During the time Berlioz is in England, the February Revolution breaks out in France. Berlioz returns to France in 1948, only to be informed that his father has died shortly after he returned. He goes to his town of birth to mourn his father with his sisters. After his return to Paris, Harriet suffers a series of strokes which leave her almost paralysed. Berlioz pays for four servants to look after her on a permenent basis and visits her almost daily. He begins composition of his Te Deum.

In 1850 he becomes Head Librarian at the Paris Conservatoire, the only official post he will ever hold, and a valuble source of income. In 1852, Liszt revives Benvenuto Cellini in what was to become the "Weimar version" of the opera, containing modifications made with the approval of Berlioz. The performances are the first since the disasterous premiere of 1838. Berlioz travelled to London in the following year to stage it at Theatre Royal, Covent Garden but withdraws it after one performance due to the hostile reception it recieved. Harriet Smithson died in 1854. L'enfance du Christ was completed later that year and was well-recieved upon its premiere. Unusually for a late Berlioz work, it appears to have remained popular long after his death. In October, Berlioz marries Marie Recio. In a letter written to his son, he says that having lived with her for so long, it was his duty to do so. In early 1855 Le Retour à la vie was revised and named Lélio. Shortly after the Te Deum recieved its premiere with Berlioz conducting. During a short visit to London, he has a long conversation with Wagner over a dinner. A second edition of Treatise on Instrumentation was also published, with a new chapter detailing aspects of conducting.

Photograph of Berlioz by Nadar, January 1857

Les Troyens

During a visit to Weimar in 1856 where he attended a performance of Liszt conducting Benvenuto Cellini. His time here with Liszt also highlighted Berlioz's increasing lack of taste for Wagner's music, much to Liszt's annoyance. Berlioz is convinced by Princess Sayn-Wittenstein - with whom he has been in contact with as a confidante for some time - that he must compose Les Troyens, a subject that he had been musing on for a while. He begins composition of this most grand of grand operas, basing the libretto (which he will write) himself on books two and four of Virgil's Aeneid, which Berlioz had learnt to read as a child with his father. The idea had already been in his mind for five years or so, and despite the long disillusionment, his creative flame seems to have re-emerged for the composition of the opera. It was to be a five act grand opera, on a similar scale as Meyerbeer's and many others that enjoyed regular performance in Paris - well rooted in the French tradition, and composed with the Paris Opéra in mind. Yet Berlioz’s chances of securing a production in which his work would receive attention at all close to its merits were negligible from the start – a fact he was fully aware of. Les Troyens was to be a very personal project for him, a homage to his first literary love, whom he had not forgotten since his discoveries of Shakespeare and Goethe. The onset of an intestinal illness which will plague Berlioz for the rest of his life has now become apparent to him. 1858 saw the completion of Les Troyens in its original form. During a visit to Baden-Baden, Edouard Bénazet commissions a new opera from Berlioz. The opera was never written due to the onset of an illness, but two years later Berlioz writes Béatrice et Bénédict for him instead, which he accepts. In 1860 the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris agrees to stage Les Troyens, only to reject it next year. It is soon picked up again by the Paris Opéra. Béatrice et Bénédict is completed on 25 February, 1862.

Marie Recio, Berlioz's wife, dies of a heart attack on 13 June at the age of 48. Berlioz meets a young woman called Amélie at Montmartre Cemetery, and though she is only 24, he comes close to her. The first performances of Béatrice et Bénédict was held at Baden-Baden on 9th and 11 August. The work had had extensive rehearsals for many months, and despite problems Berlioz found in making the musicians play as delicately as he would like, and even discovering that the orchestra pit was too small before the premiere, the work was a success. Berlioz later remarks that his conducting was much improved due to the considerable pain he was in on the day, allowing him to be "emotionally detached" and "less excitable". Béatrice was sung by Madame Charton-Demeur. Both her and her husband were staunch supporters of Berlioz's music, and Madame Charton-Demeur was present at Berlioz's deathbed. Les Troyens is dropped by the Paris Opéra under the excuse that it is too expensive to stage, instead staging Wagner's Tannhäuser. The work was attacked by his opponents for its length and demands, and with memories of the failure of Benvenuto Cellini still fresh. It was then accepted by the new director of the recently re-built Théâtre-Lyrique. In 1863 Berlioz publishes his last signed article for the Journal des Débats. After resigning, an act which should have raised his spirits given how much he detested his job, his disillusionment became even stronger. He also busied himself judging entrants for the Prix de Rome - arguing successfully for the eventual winner, the 21 year old Jules Massenet. Amélie requests that they end their relationship, which Berlioz does, to his despair. The staging of Les Troyens was frought with difficulties when performed in a truncated form at the Théâtre-Lyrique. It is eventually premiered on 4 November and ran for 21 performances until 20 December. Madame Charton-Demeur sings the role of Didon. It was first performed in Paris without cuts as recently as 2003 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

Later years

In 1864 Berlioz was made Officier de la Légion d’honneur. On 22 August, Berlioz heard from a friend that Amélie, who had been suffering from poor health, had died at the age of 26. A week later, while walking in the Montmartre Cemetery, he discovers Amélie’s grave: she had been dead for six months. By now, many of Berlioz's friends and family had died, including both of his sisters. Events like these became all too common in his later life, as his continued isolation from the musical scene increased as the focus shifted to Germany. He wrote:

“ I am in my 61st year; past hopes, past illusions, past high thoughts and lofty conceptions. My son is almost always far away from me. I am alone. My contempt for the folly and baseness of mankind, my hatred of its atrocious cruelty, have never been so intense. And I say hourly to Death: ‘When you will’. Why does he delay? ”

Berlioz meets Estelle Fornier - the object of his childhood affections - in Lyon for the first time in 40 years, and begins a regular correspondence with her. Berlioz shortly realises that he still has a strong longing for her, and eventually has to inform him that there is no possibility that they could become closer than friends. By 1865, an initial printing of 1200 copies of his Mémoires was completed. A few copies were distributed amongst his friends, but the bulk were, slightly morbidly, stored in his office at the Paris Conservatoire, to be sold upon his death. He travelled to Vienna in December 1866 to conduct the first complete performance there of La Damnation de Faust. In 1867 Berlioz's son Louis, a merchant shipping captain, dies of yellow fever in Havanna. In his study, Berlioz burns a large amount of documents and other mementos which he had accumilated during his life, keeping only a conducting baton given to him by Mendelssohn and a guitar given to him by Paganini. He then creates his will. The intestinal pains had been gradually increasing, and had now spread to his stomach, and whole days were passed in agony. At times he experienced spasms in the street so intense that he could barely move. Later that year he embarks on his second concert tour of Russia, which would also be his last of any kind. The tour was extremely lucrative for him, so much so that Berlioz turned down an offer of 100,000 francs from American Steinway to perform in New York. In St. Petersburg, Berlioz noted a special pleasure of performing with the first rate orchestra of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He returned to Paris in 1868, exausted, with his health damaged due to the Russian winter. He immediately travelled to Nice to recouperate in the Mediterranean climate, but slipped on some rocks by the sea shore, possibly due to a stroke, and had to return to Paris, where he lived as an invalid.

On 8 March, 1869, Berlioz died at his Paris home, No.4 rue de Calais, at 30 minutes past midday. He was surrounded by friends at the time. His funeral was held at the recently completed Église de la Trinité on 11 March, and he was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him. His last words were reputed to be "Enfin, on va jouer ma musique" (They are finally going to play my music). By any other composer, these would be suspected to be apocryphal, but with Berlioz one cannot be so sure.

References (Temp)

Cut out: use in new Legacy section

Berlioz became identified with the French Romantic movement. Among his many friends were writers such as Alexandre Dumas, père, Victor Hugo, and Honoré de Balzac. Later, Théophile Gautier wrote, "Hector Berlioz seems to me to form with Hugo and Delacroix, the Trinity of Romantic Art."

He published four books during his lifetime and his Mémoires appeared posthumously.