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Hector Berlioz: Music
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Berlioz’s position in 19th-century music is that of an original and groundbreaking figure who directly influenced symphonic form and the use of the orchestra as well as musical aesthetics. His Symphonie fantastique created an aesthetic revolution by its integral use of a literary program (nonmusical story or idea) and established program music as a dominant orchestral genre of the romantic movement. In Symphonie fantastique and in Harold in Italy, his use and transformation of a recurrent theme (ideé fixe) foreshadowed the genre termed symphonic poem by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. The genre was developed by many notable composers in addition to Liszt, including Richard Wagner, who publicly acknowledged his debt to Berlioz, and Richard Strauss. Other forms Berlioz introduced are the dramatic symphony, with Romeo and Juliet; the concert opera, with Damnation of Faust; and the orchestral song cycle, with Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights, 1841).
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After composing the symphony, Berlioz left for Italy to take up residence in the villa maintained for winners of the Conservatoire’s Prix de Rome contest. Upon his return to Paris, in 1832, he sought to establish himself on the musical scene by presenting a concert of his music. The program for this event consisted of Symphonie fantastique and a sequel that Berlioz had composed to it, Lélio, or the Return to Life. Through a strange coincidence of circumstance, Harriet Smithson was brought to the concert be an English journalist. She had not known that Berlioz had organized the event, nor the nature of the music to be performed. But as the performance proceeded, she began to realize that she herself was the heroine of the drama related by the music.
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Two further discoveries at this time rank as of supreme importance: in March 1828 Berlioz heard Beethoven’s Third and Fifth Symphonies, played by Habeneck and the Société des Concerts at the Conservatoire. ‘Beethoven opened before me a new world of music, as Shakespeare had revealed a new universe of poetry.’ For the first time his horizons widened from the exclusively vocal genres of opera, cantata and romanceto the expressive potential of pure instrumental music. That Berlioz wrote symphonies at all is entirely due to his obeisance to Beethoven, and the Symphonie fantastique can be seen as a deliberate and conscious attempt to work out dramatic and poetic ideas in the framework of a Beethoven symphony. More important, Berlioz discovered that instrumental music has an expressive and articulative force far more penetrating than vocal setting, a discovery shown palpably in the ‘Scène d’amour’ of Roméo et Juliette, in the Hamlet funeral march, and at certain points in Les Troyens. Just as Berlioz hardly set any of Shakespeare’s poetry to music, similarly Berlioz rarely adopted the precise tone and timbre of Beethoven. He absorbed this impact at a deep level, seeing Beethoven as a supreme dramatist in music, more poet than craftsman.
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Despite this talent, Berlioz never held an employed position of conductor during his lifetime, forced to be content with only guest conducting. This was almost not the case. In late 1835, he was approached by the management of a new concert hall in Paris, the Gymnase Musical, and offered a position as their musical director.[66] To Berlioz this was an ideal opportunity. Not only would it give him a large annual salary (between 6000 to 12,000 francs),[66] but it would ... give him a platform from which to perform his own music, and the music of fellow progressives. Berlioz accepted the offer, and signed the contract for the position.[66] However, a new decree issued by the revolutionary government forced him to change his mind. The obstacle was one of the many restrictions that the revolutionary government had placed on the running of musical establishments, forbidding the performance of vocal music,[66] so they did not compete with the influential Paris Opéra (among other organisations).
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Berlioz was born in La Côte-Saint-André in southeastern France. His father was a physician with musical tastes who taught his son not only music but ... Latin, history, geography, and other school subjects. The young Berlioz’s musical studies under various teachers made him an accomplished performer on the flute and on the guitar. It soon became clear that music was a vocation rather than a pastime for him. By the age of 12 Berlioz was producing compositions for a local ensemble and displaying his extraordinary gift for melody. The opening bars of his Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony, 1830) were first used in these juvenile works.
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The ferment of Berlioz’s mind in the late 1820s was astonishing. Instead of wilting under a constant onslaught on his sensitivities, he broke out in gusts of creative energy. The Waverley overture, the Huit scènes de Faust, the nine settings of Thomas Moore (the Irlandecollection), composed in 1829, and above all the Symphonie fantastique, composed in early 1830, are testimony to this. He was active too as a proponent of his own music. The Messe solennelle had been played at St Roch in 1825 and 1827, and on 26 May 1828 Berlioz gave his first orchestral concert in Paris. His intention was to bring himself to the attention of the public, especially Harriet Smithson, and he succeeded in his aim in that the press, particularly the influential Fétis, was favourable.
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