Louis Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
Louis Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869 was a French Romantic composer.
Berlioz took homeopathic remedies to ease his neurasthenia, and he also tried electrotherapy. Berlioz was a friend of Frederick Chopin, Pauline Viardot García, Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt and Wilhelm Richard Wagner.
Berlioz was a St. Simonist.
His father was an atheist, with a liberal outlook; his mother was an orthodox Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood. The other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life.
Unlike many other composers of the time, Berlioz was not a child prodigy; he began studying music at age 12, when he began writing small compositions and arrangements.
As a result of his father’s discouragement, he never learned to play the piano, a peculiarity he later described as both beneficial and detrimental. He became proficient at guitar and flute. He learnt harmony by textbooks alone—he was not formally trained. The majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces.
Still at age 12, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced his first passion for a woman, an 18 year old next door neighbour named Estelle Fornier (née Dubœuf). Berlioz appears to have been innately Romantic, this characteristic manifesting itself in his love affairs, adoration of great romantic literature, and his weeping at passages by Virgil (by age twelve he had learned to read Virgil in Latin and translate it into French under his father’s tutelage), Shakespeare, and Ludwig von Beethoven.
In 1821, at age 18, Berlioz was sent to Paris to study medicine, a field for which he had no interest and, later, outright disgust after viewing a human corpse being dissected.…
He also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, seeking out scores of Gluck’s operas and making personal copies of parts of them. He recalled in his Mémoires his first encounter with Luigi Cherubini, the Conservatoire’s then music director. Cherubini attempted to throw the impetuous Berlioz out of the library since he was not a formal music student at that time.
Berlioz also heard two operas by Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their friendship, and whom he later championed when working as a critic. From then on, he devoted himself to composition…
Despite his parents’ disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his medical studies to pursue a career in music…. Later that year (1827) he saw his future wife Harriet Smithson at the Odéon theatre playing Ophelia and Juliet in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare….
In 1828 Berlioz heard Ludwig von Beethoven’s third and fifth symphonies performed at the Paris Conservatoire – an experience that he found overwhelming. He also read Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust for the first time… which would become the inspiration for Huit scènes de Faust (his Opus 1), much later re-developed as La damnation de Faust….
He entered into a relationship with – and subsequently became engaged to – Camille Moke, despite the symphony being inspired by Berlioz’s obsession with Harriet Smithson. As his fourth cantata for submittal to the Prix de Rome neared completion, the July Revolution broke out.
“I was finishing my cantata when the Revolution broke out,” he recorded in his Mémoires, “I dashed off the final pages of my orchestral score to the sound of stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering on the wall outside my window. On the 29th I had finished, and was free to go out and roam about Paris ’till morning, pistol in hand”….
During one of these trips (in Italy), while Berlioz enjoyed an afternoon of sailing, he encountered a group of Carbonari. These were members of a secret society of Italian patriots based in France with the aim of creating a unified Italy….
On Berlioz’s return to Paris, a concert including Symphonie fantastique (which had extensively revised in Italy) and Le retour à la vie was performed, with among others in attendance: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Heinrich Heine, Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, George Sand, Alfred de Vigny, Theophile Gautier, Jules Janin and Harriet Smithson. At this time, Berlioz also met playwright Ernest Legouvé who became a lifelong friend.
A few days after the performance, Berlioz and Harriet were finally introduced and entered into a relationship. Despite Berlioz not understanding spoken English and Harriet not knowing any French, on 3 October 1833, they married in a civil ceremony at the British Embassy with Franz Liszt as one of the witnesses. The following year their only child, Louis Berlioz, was born…
In 1834, virtuoso violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini commissioned Berlioz to compose a viola concerto, intending to premiere it as soloist…. Niccolo Paganini… knelt before Berlioz in front of the orchestra after hearing it for the first time and proclaimed him a genius and heir to Ludwig von Beethoven. The next day Niccolo Paganini sent Berlioz a gift of 20,000 francs, the generosity of which left Berlioz uncharacteristically lost for words…. Roméo et Juliette was premiered in a series of three concerts later in 1839 to distinguished audiences, one including Wilhelm Richard Wagner….
In 1841, he also entered into a relationship with singer Marie Recio who would become his second wife….
In Leipzig he met Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Alexander Schumann, the latter of whom had written an enthusiastic article on the Symphonie fantastique. He also met Heinrich Marschner in Hanover, Wilhelm Richard Wagner in Dresden and Giacomo Meyerbeer in Berlin…
In 1844, Berlioz separated from his wife Harriet, who had long since been suffering from alcohol abuse due to the failure of her acting career, and moved in with Marie Recio. He continued to provide for Harriet for the rest of her life…
In 1847, during his stay in England, the February Revolution broke out in France. Berlioz arrived back in France in 1848, only to be informed that his father has died shortly after his return. He went back to his birthplace to mourn his father along with his sisters. After his return to Paris, Harriet suffered a series of strokes which left her almost paralysed. Berlioz paid for four servants to look after her on a permanent basis and visited her almost daily. He began composition of his Te Deum…. Harriet Smithson died in 1854.
….In October, Berlioz married Marie Recio…
The onset of an intestinal illness in 1858, which would plague Berlioz for the rest of his life, had now become apparent to him….
Marie Recio, Berlioz’s wife, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 13 June at the age of 48. Berlioz met a young woman called Amélie at Montmartre Cemetery, and though she was only 24, they developed a close relationship…. In 1863, Amélie requested that they end their relationship, which Berlioz did, to his despair… On 22 August 1864, Berlioz heard from a friend that Amélie, who had been suffering from poor health, had died at the age of 26. A week later, while walking in the Montmartre Cemetery, he discovered Amélie’s grave: she had been dead for six months.
By now, many of Berlioz’s friends and family had died, including both of his sisters. Events like these became all too common in his later life, as his continued isolation from the musical scene increased as the focus shifted to Germany.
He wrote:
“ I am in my 61st year; past hopes, past illusions, past high thoughts and lofty conceptions. My son is almost always far away from me. I am alone. My contempt for the folly and baseness of mankind, my hatred of its atrocious cruelty, have never been so intense. And I say hourly to Death: ‘When you will’. Why does he delay? ” Berlioz met Estelle Fornier – the object of his childhood affections – in Lyon for the first time in 40 years, and began a regular correspondence with her. Berlioz soon realised that he still longed for her, and eventually she had to inform him that there was no possibility that they could become closer than friends….
In 1867 Berlioz’s son Louis, a merchant shipping captain, died of yellow fever in Havana. After learning this, Berlioz burnt a large number of documents and other mementos which he had accumulated during his life, keeping only a conducting baton given to him by Felix Mendelssohn and a guitar given to him by Niccolo Paganini. He then wrote his will.
The intestinal pains had been gradually increasing, and had now spread to his stomach, and whole days were passed in agony. At times he experienced spasms in the street so intense that he could barely move…
Later that year he embarked on his second concert tour of Russia, which would also be his last of any kind. The tour was extremely lucrative for him, so much so that Berlioz turned down an offer of 100,000 francs from American Steinway to perform in New York.
In Saint Petersburg, Berlioz experienced a special pleasure at performing with the “first-rate” orchestra of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
He returned to Paris in 1868, exhausted, with his health damaged due to the Russian winter. He immediately travelled to Nice to recuperate in the Mediterranean climate, but slipped on some rocks by the sea shore, possibly due to a stroke, and had to return to Paris, where he lived as an invalid.
On 8 March 1869, Berlioz died at his Paris home, No.4 rue de Calais, at 30 minutes past midday. He was surrounded by friends at the time. His funeral was held at the recently completed Église de la Trinité on 11 March, and he was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him…
Sue :: Sep.20.2008 :: French History :: No Comments »