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
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Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (Épisodes de la Vie d'un Artiste, Op. 14/1)
Philharmonia Orchestra & Esa-Pekka Salonen
Classical - Released by Signum Records on 1 Apr 2010
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Robert Murray - Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir - Paul McCreesh
Gabrieli Consort, Paul McCreesh
Classical - Released by Signum Records on 2 Sep 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
Classical - Released by EMG Classical on 10 Apr 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Van Beinum conducts Berlioz, Schubert, Bizet and others
Classical - Released by Urania on 7 Feb 2010
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Hector Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts (Requiem), Op. 5
Classical - Released by The Digital Gramophone on 17 Jul 2014
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Berlioz: Roméo & Juliette (Live)
Classical - Released by Lodia Music International on 24 Apr 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Orchestre de la francophonie, Jean-Philippe Tremblay
Classical - Released by Analekta on 27 Mar 2012
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: An Introduction
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 27 Jun 2020
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Halloween Classical
Igor Stravinsky, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 19 Oct 2020
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Gioachino Rossini, The Barber Of Seville
Louis De Froment, Kurt Redel, Leopold Hager
Classical - Released by Classical.com Music on 16 Feb 2009
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonic Music - Released by Lodia Music International on 4 Jul 2013
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14, H 48 (Fantastic Symphony)
Classical - Released by VDE-GALLO on 21 Oct 2013
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Piano Transcription)
Classical - Released by JSC Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga Musica on 1 Jan 2009
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Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet (Digitally Remastered)
The Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic
Classical - Released by EMG Classical on 10 Apr 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relaxing Music: 30 Classical Pieces to Bring You Peace of Mind
Chamber Music - Released by Stradivari Classics on 29 Aug 2012
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Héctor Berlioz: Sinfonía Fantástica, Op. 14
Symphonic Music - Released by Meta - Vocación Musical on 12 Feb 2013
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Berlioz - Sinfonía fantástica
Classical - Released by Piros Comercial Digital on 20 Mar 2015
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Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 - Schubert: Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 3 - Chopin: Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49
Alexander Rabinovitch, Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by VDE-GALLO on 12 Oct 2015
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Berlioz - Fantastic Symphony
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 8 Jul 2015
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Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
London Symphony Orchestra, Hector Berlioz, Sir Eugene Goossens
Pop - Released by Music Manager on 26 Mar 2013
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Hector Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique
Berlioz, Hector, Hector [Composer]
Pop - Released by Là Haut Musique on 18 Oct 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo