Hector Berlioz
Berlioz, the passionate, ardent, irrepressible genius of French Romanticism, left a rich and original oeuvre which exerted a profound influence on 19th century music. Berlioz developed a profound affinity toward music and literature as a child. Sent to Paris at 17 to study medicine, he was enchanted by Gluck's operas, firmly deciding to become a composer. With his father's reluctant consent, Berlioz entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1826. His originality was already apparent and disconcerting -- a competition cantata, Cléopâtre (1829), looms as his first sustained masterpiece -- and he won the Prix de Rome in 1830 amid the turmoil of the July Revolution. Meanwhile, a performance of Hamlet in September 1827, with Harriet Smithson as Ophelia, provoked an overwhelming but unrequited passion, whose aftermath may be heard in the Symphonie fantastique (1830).
Returning from Rome, Berlioz organized a concert in 1832, featuring his symphony. Harriet Smithson was in the audience. They were introduced days later and married on October 3, 1833.
Berlioz settled into a career pattern which he maintained for more than a decade, writing reviews, organizing concerts, and composing a series of visionary masterpieces: Harold en Italie (1834), the monumental Requiem (1837), and an opera, Benvenuto Cellini (1838), a crushing fiasco. At year's end, the dying Paganini made Berlioz a gift of 20,000 francs, enabling him to devote nearly a year to the composition of his "dramatic symphony," Roméo et Juliette (1839). And then, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution, came the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale (1840).
Iridescently scored, an exquisite collection of six Gautier settings, Les nuits d'été, opened the new decade. This was a difficult time for Berlioz, as his marriage failed to bring him the happiness he desired. Concert tours to Brussels, many German cities, Vienna, Pesth, Prague, and London occupied him through most of the 1840s. He composed La Damnation de Faust, en route, offering the new work to a half-empty house in Paris, December 6, 1846. Expenses were catastrophic, and only a successful concert tour to St. Petersburg saved him.
He sat out the revolutionary upheavals of 1848 in London, returning to Paris in July. The massive Te Deum -- a "little brother" to the Requiem -- was largely composed over 1849, though it would not be heard until 1855. L'Enfance du Christ, scored an immediate and enduring success from its first performance on December 10, 1854. Elected to the Institut de France in 1855, he started receiving a members' stipend, and this provided him with a modicum of financial security. Consequently, Berlioz was able to devote himself to the summa of his career, his vast opera, Les Troyens, based on Virgil's Aeneid, the Roman poet's unfinished epic masterpiece. The opera was completed in 1858. As he negotiated for its performance, he composed a comique adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which met with a rapturous Baden première, on August 9, 1862. Unfortunately, only the third, fourth, and fifth acts of Les Troyens were mounted by the Théatre-Lyrique, a successful premiere, on November 4, 1863, and a run of 21 performances notwithstanding. This lopsided production stemmed from a compromise (bitterly regretted by the composer) that Berlioz had made with the Théâtre-Lyrique.
Though frail and ailing, Berlioz conducted his works in Vienna and Cologne in 1866, traveling to St. Petersburg and Moscow in the winter of 1867-1868. Despondent and tortured by self-doubt, the composer received a triumphant welcome in Russia. Back in Paris in March 1868, he was but a walking shadow as paralysis slowly overcame him.
© Adrian Corleonis /TiVo
Ähnliche Künstler
-
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (Épisodes de la Vie d'un Artiste, Op. 14/1)
Philharmonia Orchestra & Esa-Pekka Salonen
Klassik - Erschienen bei Signum Records am 01.04.2010
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Robert Murray - Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir - Paul McCreesh
Gabrieli Consort, Paul McCreesh
Klassik - Erschienen bei Signum Records am 02.09.2011
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Harold in Italy, Symphony for Viola and Orchestra in Four Parts (Digitally Remastered)
Moscow RTV Symphony Orchestra, Juryi Bashmet
Klassik - Erschienen bei EMG Classical am 10.04.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Van Beinum conducts Berlioz, Schubert, Bizet and others
Klassik - Erschienen bei Urania am 07.02.2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hector Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts (Requiem), Op. 5
Klassik - Erschienen bei The Digital Gramophone am 17.07.2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Roméo & Juliette (Live)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Lodia Music International am 24.04.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Orchestre de la francophonie, Jean-Philippe Tremblay
Klassik - Erschienen bei Analekta am 27.03.2012
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: An Introduction
Klassik - Erschienen bei UME - Global Clearing House am 27.06.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Halloween Classical
Igor Stravinsky, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns
Klassik - Erschienen bei UME - Global Clearing House am 19.10.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gioachino Rossini, The Barber Of Seville
Louis De Froment, Kurt Redel, Leopold Hager
Klassik - Erschienen bei Classical.com Music am 16.02.2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonieorchester - Erschienen bei Lodia Music International am 04.07.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14, H 48 (Fantastic Symphony)
Klassik - Erschienen bei VDE-GALLO am 21.10.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Piano Transcription)
Klassik - Erschienen bei JSC Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga Musica am 01.01.2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet (Digitally Remastered)
The Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic
Klassik - Erschienen bei EMG Classical am 10.04.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relaxing Music: 30 Classical Pieces to Bring You Peace of Mind
Kammermusik - Erschienen bei Stradivari Classics am 29.08.2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Héctor Berlioz: Sinfonía Fantástica, Op. 14
Symphonieorchester - Erschienen bei Meta - Vocación Musical am 12.02.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz - Sinfonía fantástica
Klassik - Erschienen bei Piros Comercial Digital am 20.03.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 - Schubert: Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 3 - Chopin: Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49
Alexander Rabinovitch, Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei VDE-GALLO am 12.10.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz - Fantastic Symphony
Klassik - Erschienen bei ClassicalPirosDigital am 08.07.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
London Symphony Orchestra, Hector Berlioz, Sir Eugene Goossens
Pop - Erschienen bei Music Manager am 26.03.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hector Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique
Berlioz, Hector, Hector [Composer]
Pop - Erschienen bei Là Haut Musique am 18.10.2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo