LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hector Berlioz: Te Deum
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Berlioz was born at La-Côte-Saint-André (Isère) on Dec. 9, 1803, the son of a doctor. His father, a cultured man, was his first teacher. Berlioz formed his lifelong attachment to the poetry of Virgil at this time. From the age of 12 he took music lessons; he studied flute and then guitar, and these were the only instruments he ever played. After reading some treatises on harmony he began to compose.
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Berlioz only went to school for a short time, when he was ten years old. The rest of his education he had from his father. He liked French and Latin literature and travel books about faraway countries. He learned to play the flute, the flageolet and the guitar. He read a book by Rameau about harmony. He never had a piano.
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Berlioz had not wholly given up conducting his own music abroad. In December 1866 he accepted an invitation to conduct La damnation de Faust in Vienna. Hanslick, who had admired Roméo et Juliette in 1846, castigated the music but in general its success was immense. Age, illness and his poor knowledge of German now impaired his conducting skill, but he was lionized by Cornelius and Herbeck and fêted as he had been in 1845. The following February he conducted Harold en Italie and parts of Béatrice et Bénédict in Cologne as the guest of his old friend from 1830, Ferdinand Hiller. The final burst of energy was his acceptance of an invitation to St Petersburg in November 1867, shortly after the death of Louis.
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Where the 1824 Agnus dei finishes, in the 1848–9 Te deum Berlioz adds a new section in the major key for the words “speravimus in te” sung by the solo tenor in floridly expressive melismas. The original melody returns in the choral basses, now in G major, to end the movement in subdued fashion, the choir singing a cappella and echoed by soft pizzicatos.
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During all this time, Berlioz refined his literary Program, considerably toning down the attack on the faithless woman. Gradually he became ready to let the music speak for itself without a text at all. By 1855 he had recast it so that the musician takes his dose of opium at the outset; ... the entire symphony is as an opium dream. Here is an abridged version of Berlioz’s 1855 program.
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The next January Berlioz went home to his family, who were now reconciled to his choice of music as a profession, and deluged him with compliments, caresses and tender solicitude. The parents had fully forgiven their gifted son.
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