- Date: 1859 06
- Composer: Hector Berlioz
- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
Review
Johann Paul Aegidius Schwartzendorf (1741-1816), known as Martini il Tedesco ("Martini the German"), is another composer who cut a great figure in his day-theorist, professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire, music master to two kings, prolific and successful composer-only to be remembered now for the single wistful melody, Plaisir d'amour. To a poem by the sentimental poet, Jean-Pierre-Claris de Florian (1755-1794)-"Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,/Chagrin d'amour durent toute la vie"-this song has proven imperishable. The great mélodiste Charles Bordes (1863-1909), alludes to it in his Sur un vieil air, cabaret singers occasionally recall it, Joan Baez sang it in the 1960s, and Berlioz arranged it for baritone and a small orchestra of two flutes, two clarinets, two horns, and strings in 1859. Berlioz almost certainly became acquainted with Plaisir d'amour as a child, during family sessions of home music-making, when he might play the flageolet or guitar, or sing in a fine tenor voice. By the time he came to arrange it, all but one of his major works had been composed. Les Troyens, his artistic summa and testament, lay just behind him, and he invests his arrangement of Plaisir d'amour with some of the ineffable magic of its love duet, "Nuit d'ivresse." It was first heard in a concert at the Paris Opéra-comique, 23 April 1859, sung by its dedicatee, the bass Charles-Aimable Battaille, who had taken the part of the Père de famille at the triumphant première of L'Enfance du Christ in 1854. Richault paid Berlioz 50 francs for it and published the full score in June 1859. ~ Adrian Corleonis, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Great Tenors | 1999 |
