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

Louis Hector Berlioz (December 11, 1803 – March 8, 1869) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande Messe des morts (Requiem). Berlioz made great contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation and by utilizing huge orchestral forces for his works, sometimes calling for over 1000 performers.^[1] At the other extreme, he also composed around 50 songs for voice and piano.

Biography

Early years

Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André^[2] in the département of Isère, near Lyon on 11 December, 1803.^[3] His father was a respected^[4] provincial physician^[5] and scholar and was responsible for much of the young Berlioz's education.^[4] His father was an atheist,^[5] with a liberal outlook,^[6] while his mother an orthodox Roman Catholic.^[4][5] He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood.^[7] The other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life.^[8] Berlioz did not begin to study music until the age of twelve, when he began writing small compositions and arrangements. Unlike many other composers of the time, he was not a child prodigy, and (as a result of his father's discouragement) never learned to play the piano, a peculiarity he later described as both beneficial and detrimental. ^[9] Despite this, he gained proficiency at both the guitar and flute.^[10][11] He learnt harmony by textbooks alone - he was not formally trained.^[11][10] 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).^[4][12] The majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces.^[10][13] Berlioz appears to have been innately Romantic, - this characteristic manifesting itself in his love affairs, adoration of great romantic literature,^[14] and his weeping at passages by Virgil,^[6] (By age twelve he had learned to read Virgil in Latin and translate it into French under his father's tuition) 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,^[15][5] a field in which he had no interest, and later, outright disgust towards after viewing a human corpse being dissected,^[4][5] which he later detailed in a colourful account in his Mémoires.^[16] 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 Christoph Willibald Gluck, a composer whom he came to admire above all, jointly alongside Ludwig van Beethoven. 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.^[17][18] Berlioz also heard two operas by Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their friendship, and who he later championed when working as a critic. From then on, he devoted himself to composition, encouraged by Jean-François Lesueur, director of the Royal Chapel and professor at the Conservatoire. In 1823, he wrote 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.^[4]

Despite his parents disapproval,^[14] in 1824 he formally abandoned his medical studies^[5] to pursue a career in music. He composed the Messe solennelle, which was rehearsed, and revised after the rehearsal, but not performed again until the following year. Berlioz later claimed to have burnt the score,^[19] but it was miraculously re-discovered in 1991.^[20][21] Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the opera Les francs-juges, which was completed the following year but went unperformed. The work survives only in fragments,^[22] but the overture survives and is sometimes played in concert. In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire^[15] to study composition under Lesueur and Anton Reicha. He also submitted a fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round. Winning the prize would become an obsession for him until he finally won it in 1830 - he submitted a new cantata every year until he succeeded at his fourth attempt. The reason for this interest in the prize was not just academic recognition, but because part of the prize included a five year pension^[23] - much needed income for the struggling composer. In 1827 he composed the Waverly overture after Walter Scott's^[15] Waverley novels. He also began working as a chorus singer at a vaudeville theatre to contribute towards an income.^[5][12] Later that year, he saw his future wife Harriet Smithson at the Odéon theatre playing Ophelia and Juliet in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. He immediately became infatuated by both actress^[14] and playwright.^[15] 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.^[5]

In 1828 Berlioz heard Beethoven's third and fifth symphonies performed at the Paris Conservatoire - an experience that he found overwhelming.^[24] He also read Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust for the first time (in French translation), which would become the inspiration for Huit scènes de Faust (his Opus 1), much later re-developed as La damnation de Faust. He also came into contact with Beethoven's string quartets^[25] and piano sonatas, and recognised the importance of these immediately. He began to study English so that he could read Shakespeare. At a similar time, he also began to write musical criticism.^[5] He began and finished composition of the Symphonie fantastique in 1830, a work which would bring Berlioz much fame and notoriety. He entered into a relationship with - and subsequently became engaged to - Camille Moke, despite the symphony being inspired by Berlioz's obsession with Harriet Smithson. As his fourth cantata for submittal 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".^[26] Shortly later, he finally wins the prize^[27][28] with the cantata Sardanapale. He also arranged the French national anthem La Marseillaise as well as composed 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.^[29] Berlioz met Franz Liszt who was also attending the concert. This proved to be the beginning of a long friendship. Liszt would later transcribe the entire Symphonie fantastique for piano to enable more people to hear it.

Italy

On December 30th, 1831, Berlioz left France for Rome, prompted by a clause in the Prix de Rome which required winners to spend two years studying there. Although none of his major works were actually written in Italy, His travels and experiences there would later influence and inspire much of his music. This is most evident in the thematic aspects of his music, particularly Harold en Italie (1834), a work inspired by Byron’s Childe Harold. Berlioz later recalled that his, "intention was to write a series of orchestral scenes, in which the solo viola would be involved as a more or less active participant [with the orchestra] while retaining its own character. By placing it among the poetic memories formed from my wanderings in Abruzzi, I wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer in the manner of Byron’s Childe-Harold".

In Rome he stayed at the French Academy in the Villa Medici. 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."^[6] He therefore made an effort to leave the city as often as possible, making frequent trips to the surrounding country. During one of these trips, while Berlioz enjoyed an afternoon of sailing, he encountered a group of Carbonari. These were members of a secret society of Italian patriots based in France with the aim of creating a unified Italy.^[30]

While in Italy he received a letter from the mother of his fiancée informing him that she had called off their engagement and that her daughter was to marry Camille Pleyel (son of Ignaz Pleyel), a rich piano manufacturer. Enraged, Berlioz decided to return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée, and her mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan, going so far as to purchase a dress, wig and hat with a veil (with which he was to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to their home).^[31] He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols from the Academy to kill them with, saving a single shot for himself.^[31] Meticulously careful, Berlioz purchased phials of strychnine and laudanum^[31] to use as poisons in the event of a pistol jamming.

Despite this careful planning, Berlioz failed to carry through with the plot. By the time he had reached Genoa, he realised he left his disguise in the side pocket of a carriage during his journey. After arriving in Nice (at that time, part of Italy), he reconsidered the entire plan, deciding it to be inappropriate and foolish.^[31] He sent a letter to the Academy in Rome, requesting that he be allowed to return. This request was accepted,^[12] and he prepared for his trip back.

Before returning to Rome, Berlioz composed the overtures to King Lear in Nice^[7] and Rob Roy,^[10] and began work on a sequel to the Symphonie fantastique, Le retour à la vie (The Return to Life),^[32] renamed Lélio in 1855.

Upon his return to Rome, Berlioz posed for a portrait painting by Emile Signol (completed in April 1832), which Berlioz did not consider to be a good likeness of himself.^[33]

Berlioz continued to travel throughout his stay in Italy. He visited Pompeii, Naples, Milan, Tivoli, Florence, Turin and Genoa. Italy was important in providing Berlioz with experiences that would be impossible in France. At times, it was as if he himself was actually experiencing the Romantic tales of Byron in person; consorting with brigands, corsairs, and peasants.^[6] In November 1832 he returned to Paris to promote his music, after spending 15 months in Italy, nearly killing his former fiancée’s family, and discovering a deeper romantic side of himself that would continue to affect his music forever.

Painting of Berlioz by Émile Signol, 1832. Owned by the French Academy, Rome.^[33] 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 many of his most popular and enduring works.^[21] The foremost of these are the Symphonie fantastique (1830), Harold en Italie (1834), the Grande Messe des morts (Requiem) (1837) and Roméo et Juliette (1839).

On Berlioz's return to Paris, a concert including Symphonie fantastique (which had extensively revised in Italy)^[34] and Le retour à la vie was 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. At this time, Berlioz also met playwright Ernest Legouvé who became a lifelong friend. A few days after the performance, Berlioz and Harriet were finally introduced, and entered into a relationship. Despite Berlioz not understanding spoken English and Harriet not knowing any French,^[12] on 3 October 1833, they married in a civil ceremony at the British Embassy with Liszt as one of the witnesses.^[7] Next year their first and only child, Louis Berlioz, was born - a source of initial disappointment and anxiety, and eventual pride to his father.^[6]

In 1834, virtuoso violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini commissioned Berlioz to compose a viola concerto,^[15] 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 expressing misgivings over its outward lack of complexity.^{[citation needed]} The premiere of the piece was held later that year, and after initially rejecting the piece, after hearing it 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.^[35][36] The next day he sent Berlioz a gift of 20,000 francs,^[7][12] the generosity of which left Berlioz uncharacteristically lost for words.^[37] Around this time, Berlioz decided to conduct most of his own concerts, tired as he was of conductors who did not understand his music. This decision launched what was to become a lucrative and creatively fruitful career in conducting music both by himself and other leading composers.

Berlioz composed the opera Benvenuto Cellini in 1836, and was to spend a lot of effort and money in the following decades trying to have it performed to a successful reception. The piece which followed was one of his most enduring, the Grande Messe des morts, which was first performed at Les Invalides^[38] in December of that year.^[39] Its gestation was difficult due to the nature of the commission - as it was paid for by the state,^[36][28] much bureaucracy had to be endured. There was also opposition from Luigi Cherubini, who was at the time the music director of the Paris Conservatoire. Cherubini felt that a government-sponsored commission should naturally be offered to himself rather than the young Berlioz, who was considered an eccentric.^[4] (It should be noted, however, that regardless of the animosity between the two composers, Berlioz learned from and admired Cherubini's music,^[40] such as the requiem.)^[41] Benvenuto Cellini was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 10 September, but was a failure due to a hostile audience.^[27][32]

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.^{[citation needed]} (He considered his Requiem his best work, however: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I should crave mercy for the Messe des morts".)^[42] 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 was appointed Conservateur Adjoint (Deputy Librarian) Paris Conservatoire Library. Berlioz supported himself and his family by writing musical criticism for Paris publications, primarily Journal des Débats for over thirty years, and also Gazette musicale and Le Rénovateur.^[10] While his career as a critic and writer^[15] provided him with a comfortable income, and he had an obvious talent for writing, he came to detest^[21][43][27] the amount of time spent attending performances to review, as it severely limited his free time to promote his own composition^[15] and produce more compositions. It should also be noted that despite his prominent position in musical criticism, he did not use his articles to promote his own works.^[32]

Mid-life

Lithograph of Berlioz by August Prinzhofer, Vienna, 1845. Aside from the cane and ring (which he never used or wore), Berlioz thought this to be a good likeness

After the 1830s, Berlioz found it increasingly difficult to achieve recognition for his music in France, and as a result, he began to travel to other countries more often. Between 1842 and 1863 he traveled to Germany, England, Austria, Russia and elsewhere,^[10][14] where he conducted operas and orchestral music - both his own and others'. During his lifetime, Berlioz was as famous a conductor as he was as a composer.^[44] In 1840, the Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale was 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 held in the open air on 28 July, conducted by Berlioz himself, at the Place de la Bastille, in honour of the victims of the revolution, and during the performance, the piece was difficult to hear due to the crowds and timpani of the drum corps.^[36] Next year he began but later abandoned the composition of a new opera, La Nonne sanglante, of which some fragments survive.^[45] This was later remedied by a concert performance a month later, and Wagner voiced his approval of the work.^[36] In 1841, Berlioz wrote recitatives for a production of Weber's Der Freischütz at the Paris Opéra, and also orchestrated Weber’s Invitation à la valse to add ballet music to it. Later that year Berlioz finished composing the song cycle Les nuits d'été for piano and voices (later to be orchestrated in a revision). He also entered 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 included: 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.^[45] Back in Paris, Berlioz began to compose the concert overture Le Carnaval romain, based on^[15] music from Benvenuto Cellini. The work was finished the following year and was premiered shortly after. Nowadays it is among the most popular of his overtures.

In early 1844, Berlioz's highly influential^[3][5] Treatise on Instrumentation was published for the first time. At this time Berlioz was producing several serialisations for music journals which would eventually be collected into his Mémoires and Les Soirées de l’Orchestre (Evenings with the Orchestra).^[45] 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.^[45] Berlioz separated from his wife Harriet, who had long since been suffering from alcohol abuse due to the failure of her acting career,^[5] and moved in with Marie Recio. He continued to provide for Harriet for the rest of her life. He also met Mikhail Glinka (who he had initially met in Italy and remained a close friend), who was in Paris between 1844-5, 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.^[7] The two tours of Russia (the second in 1867) proved so financially successful^[7] that they secured Berlioz's finances despite the large amounts of money he was losing in writing unsuccessful compositions. In 1845 he embarked on his first large-scale concert tour of France. He also attended and wrote a report on the inauguration of a statue to Beethoven in Bonn,^[45] and began composing La damnation de Faust, incorporating the earlier Huit scènes de Faust. On his return to Paris, the recently completed La damnation de Faust was premiered at the Opéra-Comique, but after two performances, the run was discontinued and the work was a popular failure^[46] (perhaps due to its halfway status between opera and cantata), despite receiving generally favourable critical reviews.