Louis-Hector Berlioz was born in La Cote-St-Andre, in the French Alps, on December 11, 1803. His father, a prosperous physician with a love for music, invited many music masters to settle in the town so the boy would be exposed to a rich musical environment. He learned the basics of composition as well as to play the flute and guitar.
Sent to Paris in 1821 to study medicine, Berlioz spent his spare time studying music. He began to study composition with the composer Jean-Francois Le Sueur and he swapped disciplines mid-course and started his formal music studies at the Paris Conservatoire in 1826.
After attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet on September 11, 1827, Berlioz fell in love with a pretty Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, who played Ophelia. At the time he was a little known composer but he pursued Harriet with numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered. When she left Paris they had still not met but despite this, Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique in 1830 as a way to express his unrequited passion.
Sent to Paris in 1821 to study medicine, Berlioz spent his spare time studying music. He began to study composition with the composer Jean-Francois Le Sueur and he swapped disciplines mid-course and started his formal music studies at the Paris Conservatoire in 1826.
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| The young Berlioz |
After attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet on September 11, 1827, Berlioz fell in love with a pretty Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, who played Ophelia. At the time he was a little known composer but he pursued Harriet with numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered. When she left Paris they had still not met but despite this, Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique in 1830 as a way to express his unrequited passion.
While recoiling from his obsession with Smithson, Berlioz fell in love with a nineteen-year-old pianist, Marie ("Camille") Moke. His feelings were reciprocated, and the couple planned to be married. Upon hearing that Marie had broken off their engagement and was to marry an older and richer suitor Berlioz concocted a ridiculously impractical and elaborate revenge plan. He disguised himself in drag (as a lady's maid), and traveled to Marie's place of residence with two pistols and a vial of poison, planning to shoot Marie and the other man, then poison himself. He abandoned this plan halfway through the journey and never carried out his revenge.
In December 1832 he gave a concert of Symphonie fantastique to which he invited Harriet to attend, which she did and heard the work that she'd inspired for the first time. By now the actress' career was failing and she was in financial hardship; Harriet saw the besotted Hector as a way out of debt so on October 3, 1833, they were married.
Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique created an aesthetic revolution by its integral use of a literary program (inspired by his infatuation for Harriet Smithson) and established program music as a dominant romantic orchestral genre.
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| Portrait of Harriet Smithson (1800-1854) by Dubufe, Claude-Marie |
Berlioz and Smithson had one child together, Louis Berlioz, who was born on August 14, 1834. While the marriage was happy for several years, they separated nine years later.
In order to have a regular income, Berlioz became a journalist and developed into a major critic. In 1832 he began a 30-year spell as music critic for the Journal des débats and started writing for the Gazette musicale in 1834.
Berlioz's 1843 book on modern instrumentation and orchestration Treatise on Instrumentation was the first book on that subject. An exposition of the aesthetics of musical expression as well as a handbook.
it became a standard reference work.
Berlioz’s masterpiece is considered to be his monumental opera Les Troyens (The Trojans, 1856–59), in which his romanticism is infused with classical restraint
His other musical works include the orchestral work Harold in Italy (1834), the symphony with chorus Roméo et Juliette (1836–38), the cantata La damnation de Faust (1846), the requiem mass Grande messe des morts (1837), and the oratorio L’enfance du Christ (1850–54),
His other musical works include the orchestral work Harold in Italy (1834), the symphony with chorus Roméo et Juliette (1836–38), the cantata La damnation de Faust (1846), the requiem mass Grande messe des morts (1837), and the oratorio L’enfance du Christ (1850–54),
After 1840, Belioz began to make concert tours outside France, conducting many of his works in Germany, Belgium, England, and Russia. His penchant for the monumental is illustrated by a Paris concert given under his direction in 1844, which amassed 1,022 performers, including 36 double basses for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, 24 French horns for Weber's Der Freischütz overture, and 25 harps for Rossini's Prayer of Moses.
His mental and physical health declined rapidly in the late 1860s and Berlioz died a rather disconsolate figure on March 8, 1869.
Sources Songfacts, http://www.classicfm.co.uk/, Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
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| Berlioz in 1857 |
His mental and physical health declined rapidly in the late 1860s and Berlioz died a rather disconsolate figure on March 8, 1869.
Sources Songfacts, http://www.classicfm.co.uk/, Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
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