Classical Music / Composer Dateline: December 11
French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), is one of the founders of modern orchestration. Together with Liszt and Wagner, he was a major figure in the Romantic movement. He was inspired by literature and drama, with a theatrical quality.
(Louis) Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, an elder son of a provincial doctor. His father sent him to Paris to study medicine but instead, he entered the conservatory of music, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1830. He was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession.
His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize, the Prix de Rome, but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence.
At the age of twenty-two Berlioz fell in love with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, and he pursued her obsessively until she finally accepted him seven years later. They married in 1833. Their marriage was happy at first but eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout. To supplement his income he became a critic, writing witty dissections of the Parisian musical life idiocies.
Image above: Leonard Bernstein conducting Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with the Orchestre National de France. Uploaded by Nigel Simeone, Accessed December 11, 2019.
In 1836, he was commissioned by the French government to write Messe des morts, performed the following year at a memorial service for fallen soldiers in Algeria. The famous Italian composer-violinist Niccolo Paganini sent him 20,000 francs to enable him to devote his time to composition. His Harold en Italie was Paganini-inspired, followed by Romeo et Juliette and Benvenuto Cellini.
Berlioz conducted in Prague, Budapest, Germany, Vienna, Russia, and London, traveling much during the next few years. His brilliant La Damnation de Faust was first performed in 1846 and the massive Te Deum in 1855, but he continued to suffer from lack of recognition. For many years his reputation rested on his Symphonie fantastique.
Berlioz, with his thick head of reddish hair, was impulsive, emotional, and bursting with energy and radical ideas. Disappointment clouded his life as he grew older, but the same fiery energy and brilliance never left him.
His true genius was only fully revealed until his operas and large-scale works were widely performed in the 1960s. He composed his masterpiece, the epic opera Les Troyens (The Trojans), from Virgil’s classic Aeneid. His other works include the cantata L’enfance du Christ, the opera Beatrice et Benedict, and Symphonie funèbre et triomphale.
Resources:
Latham, Alison, Ed. The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Sadie, Stanley, Ed. The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1994
Note: This piece is a brief biography taken from my longer article written for Suite101.com, September, 2007. / Tel
(c) December 2013. Updated December 11, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
Conductor, Writer and Symphonist known For 'Symphonie Fantastique'
French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), is one of the founders of modern orchestration. Together with Liszt and Wagner, he was a major figure in the Romantic movement. He was inspired by literature and drama, with a theatrical quality.(Louis) Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, an elder son of a provincial doctor. His father sent him to Paris to study medicine but instead, he entered the conservatory of music, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1830. He was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession.
His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize, the Prix de Rome, but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence.
At the age of twenty-two Berlioz fell in love with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, and he pursued her obsessively until she finally accepted him seven years later. They married in 1833. Their marriage was happy at first but eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout. To supplement his income he became a critic, writing witty dissections of the Parisian musical life idiocies.
Image above: Leonard Bernstein conducting Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with the Orchestre National de France. Uploaded by Nigel Simeone, Accessed December 11, 2019.
In 1836, he was commissioned by the French government to write Messe des morts, performed the following year at a memorial service for fallen soldiers in Algeria. The famous Italian composer-violinist Niccolo Paganini sent him 20,000 francs to enable him to devote his time to composition. His Harold en Italie was Paganini-inspired, followed by Romeo et Juliette and Benvenuto Cellini.
Berlioz conducted in Prague, Budapest, Germany, Vienna, Russia, and London, traveling much during the next few years. His brilliant La Damnation de Faust was first performed in 1846 and the massive Te Deum in 1855, but he continued to suffer from lack of recognition. For many years his reputation rested on his Symphonie fantastique.
Berlioz, with his thick head of reddish hair, was impulsive, emotional, and bursting with energy and radical ideas. Disappointment clouded his life as he grew older, but the same fiery energy and brilliance never left him.
His true genius was only fully revealed until his operas and large-scale works were widely performed in the 1960s. He composed his masterpiece, the epic opera Les Troyens (The Trojans), from Virgil’s classic Aeneid. His other works include the cantata L’enfance du Christ, the opera Beatrice et Benedict, and Symphonie funèbre et triomphale.
Resources:
Latham, Alison, Ed. The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Sadie, Stanley, Ed. The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1994
Note: This piece is a brief biography taken from my longer article written for Suite101.com, September, 2007. / Tel
(c) December 2013. Updated December 11, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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