SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
a man in a frenzy
He forgot to eat and drink; he was like a man in a frenzy. A performance of Iphigénie en Tauride finished him. He studied under Lesueur and then at the Conservatoire. The following year, 1827, he composed Les Francs-Juges; two years afterwards the Huit scènes de Faust, which was the nucleus of the future Damnation;[56] three years afterwards, the Symphonie fantastique (commenced in 1830).[57] And he had not yet got the Prix de Rome! Add to this that in 1828 he had already ideas for Roméo et Juliette, and that he had written a part of Lelio in 1829. Can one find elsewhere a more dazzling musical debut? Compare that of Wagner who, at the same age, was shyly writing Les Fées, Défense d’aimer, and Rienzi.
[Footnote 56: The Huit scènes de Faust are taken from Goethe’s tragedy, translated by Gérard de Nerval, and they include: (1) Chants de la fête de Pâques; (2) Paysans sous les tilleuls; (3) Concert des Sylphes; (4 and 5) Taverne d’Auerbach, with the two songs of the Rat and the Flea; (6) Chanson du roi de Thulé; (7) Romance de Marguerite, «D’amour, l’ardente flamme,» and Choeur de soldats; (8) Sérénade de Méphistophélès–that is to say, the most celebrated and characteristic pages of the Damnation (see M. Prudhomme’s essays on Le Cycle de Berlioz).]
[Footnote 57: One could hardly find a better manifestation of the soul of a youthful musical genius than that in certain letters written at this time; in particular the letter written to Ferrand on 28 June, 1828, with its feverish postscript. What a life of rich and overflowing vigour! It is a joy to read it; one drinks at the source of life itself.]
He wrote them at the same age, but ten years later; for Les Fées appeared in 1833, when Berlioz had already written the Fantastique, the Huit scènes de Faust, Lelio, and Harold; Rienzi was only played in 1842, after Benvenuto (1835), Le Requiem (1837), Roméo (1839), La Symphonie funèbre et triomphale (1840)–that is to say, when Berlioz had finished all his great works, and after he had achieved his musical revolution. And that revolution was effected alone, without a model, without a guide. What could he have heard beyond the operas of Gluck and Spontini while he was at the Conservatoire? At the time when he composed the Ouverture des Francs-Juges even the name of Weber was unknown to him,[58] and of Beethoven’s compositions he had only heard an andante.[59]
Truly, he is a miracle and the most startling phenomenon in the history of nineteenth-century music. His audacious power dominates all his age; and in the face of such a genius, who would not follow Paganini’s example, and hail him as Beethoven’s only successor?[60] Who does not see what a poor figure the young Wagner cut at that time, working away in laborious and self-satisfied mediocrity? But Wagner soon made up for lost ground; for he knew what he wanted, and he wanted it obstinately.
[Footnote 58: Mémoires, I, 70.]
[Footnote 59: Ibid. To make amends for this he published, in 1829, a biographical notice of Beethoven, in which his appreciation of him is remarkably in advance of his age. He wrote there: «The Choral Symphony is the culminating point of Beethoven’s genius,» and he speaks of the Fourth Symphony in C sharp minor with great discernment.]
[Footnote 60: Beethoven died in 1827, the year when Berlioz was writing his first important work, the Ouverture des Francs-Juges.]
this was: A Man In A Frenzy
go to next chapter: Berlioz’s Genius
