Berlioz: Scenes from the Life and Work

269 Pages·2008·2.266 MB·English

by  Peter Bloom

Berlioz
Eastman Studies in Music
Ralph P. Locke, Senior Editor
Eastman School of Music
Additional Titles on Nineteenth-Century European Music
Analyzing Wagner’s Operas: Alfred Lorenz The Musical Madhouse
and German Nationalist Ideology (Les Grotesques de la musique)
Stephen McClatchie Hector Berlioz
Translated and edited by
Berlioz: Past, Present, Future Alastair Bruce
Edited by Peter Bloom Introduction by Hugh Macdonald
Berlioz’s Semi-Operas:Roméo et Juliette Musicking Shakespeare: A Conflict of
andLa damnation de Faust Theatres
Daniel Albright Daniel Albright
European Music and Musicians in New Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth
York City, 1840–1900 Century to Debussy
Edited by John Graziano Jeremy Day-O’Connell
French Organ Music from the Revolution Schubert in the European Imagination,
to Franck and Widor Volume 1: The Romantic and Victorian Eras
Edited by Lawrence Archbold Volume 2: Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
and William J. Peterson Scott Messing
Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Schumann’s Piano Cycles and the Novels
Interpretations of Jean Paul
Edited by Stephen A. Crist and Erika Reiman
Roberta Montemorra Marvin
The Substance of Things Heard: Writings
Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis about Music
Night: The Heathen Muse in European Paul Griffiths
Culture, 1700–1850
John Michael Cooper Wagner and Wagnerism in Nineteenth-
Century Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic
Musical Encounters at the 1889 Provinces: Reception, Enthusiasm, Cult
Paris World’s Fair Hannu Salmi
Annegret Fauser
A complete list of titles in the Eastman Studies in Music Series,
in order of publication, may be found at the end of this book.
Berlioz
Scenes from the Life and Work
EDITED BY PETER BLOOM
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS
Copyright © 2008by the Editor and Contributors
All rights reserved.Except as permitted under current legislation,
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2008
University of Rochester Press
668Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP123DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978–1–58046–209–9
ISBN-10: 1–58046–209–X
ISSN: 1071–9989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berlioz : scenes from the life and work / edited by Peter Bloom.
p. cm. — (Eastman studies in music, ISSN 1071-9989; v. 52)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-209-9(hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-58046-209-X
1. Berlioz, Hector, 1803–1869—Criticism and interpretation. I.
Bloom, Peter.
ML410.B5B358 2008
780.92—dc22
[B]
2007030946
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Note to the Reader ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction:
Berlioz in the Aftermath of the Bicentenary 1
PETERBLOOM
Part One: Aesthetic Issues
1 The Music in the Music of Berlioz 11
JACQUESBARZUN
2 “Artistic Religiosity”:
Berlioz Between the Te Deumand L’Enfance du Christ 26
FRANKHEIDLBERGER
Part Two: In Fiction and Fact
3 Euphoniaand the Utopia of the Orchestra as Society 47
JOËL-MARIEFAUQUET
4 Berlioz and the Mezzo-Soprano 64
JULIANRUSHTON
Part Three: Criticizing and Criticized
5 Berlioz as Composer-Critic 89
GÉRARDCONDÉ
6 “A Certain Hector Berlioz”: 101
News in Germany about Berlioz in France
GUNTHERBRAAM
vi ❧ contents
Part Four: The “Dramatic Symphony”
7 Berlioz’s Lost Roméo et Juliette 125
HUGHMACDONALD
8 Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Berlioz’s Scène d’amour 138
JEAN-PIERREBARTOLI
Part Five: In Foreign Lands
9 Germany at First 163
PEPIJNVANDOESBURG
10 England and Berlioz 174
LORDABERDARE(ALASTAIRBRUCE)
Part Six: An Artist’s Life
11 Berlioz Writing the Life of Berlioz 201
PETERBLOOM
12 Berlioz: Autobiography, Biography 221
DAVIDCAIRNS
Contributors 235
Index 239
Acknowledgments
More intense than the relief one feels on completing an enterprise of this sort
is the satisfaction of acknowledging assistance. To Ralph Locke, Rochester’s end-
lessly enthusiastic man in music, I say a thousand thanks. To my old friend
Dennis Alter, presiding genius of Advanta Corporation, who has for years made
grants to Smith College in support of my research, I cannot express (but hope
he knows) how much I value his friendship and generosity. To Valérie Riou, asso-
ciate director of Smith College in Paris, encore mercifor holding the fort while I
began to edit these papers. To my wife Catherine and children Alexandra and
Caroline, thanks and grosses bises for patience (sort of) and understanding
(sometimes) while I was with Berlioz instead of where you thought I ought to be.
For special kindnesses I am grateful to my friends Joël-Marie Fauquet, Richard
Macnutt, Catherine Massip, and Cécile Reynaud; I am grateful to the brilliant
outside reviewer whom Rochester had the wisdom to engage to read a first ver-
sion of this text; and I am grateful to those pillars of Berlioz scholarship who are
David Cairns, Katherine Kolb, and Hugh Macdonald.
My efforts have profited from many teachers, cela va sans dire, but here I
should like to mention two in particular: John de Lancie, with whom it was my
pleasure to study the oboe at the Curtis Institute of Music over forty years ago,
and from whom I learned the meaning of excellence; and Jacques Barzun, with
whom it has been my pleasure to correspond about Berlioz and more for almost
forty years, and to whom, were it not inappropriate for the editor of a collection
of essays by various hands to do so, I would gladly dedicate this book.
—P. B., fall 2007

Note to the Reader
The original texts of passages in French are included here only when they are
necessary for proper comprehension or when they are not readily available in
such sources as Berlioz’s Mémoires, Correspondance générale(CG), and Critique musi-
cale (CM). References to the Mémoires are often by chapter only, since editions
vary. References to Berlioz’s feuilletonsare usually by date of publication; all feuil-
letonsthrough 1848may be readily found in CM(see the following list of abbre-
viations).
Pitch Notation