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We only know that Berlioz's life was made up of love and its torments. The theme of a touching passage in the Introduction of the Symphonic fantastique has been recently identified by M. Julien Tiersot, in his interesting book, with a romance composed by Berlioz at the age of twelve, when he loved a girl of eighteen "with large eyes and pink shoes" Estelle, Stella mentis, Stella matutina.
Berlioz composed some remarkable works while at the Conservatoire, among which were the "Ouverture des Francs Juges," and the symphonie "Fantastique," and in many ways indicated that the bent of his genius had fully declared itself. His decided and indomitable nature disdained to wear a mask, and he never sugar-coated his opinion, however unpalatable to others.
"Ah, mon Dieu! but not to this," cried the Chevalier, raising his hands and eyes in deprecating astonishment. "Not to my Soirée Fantastique! The art of legerdemain, Monsieur, is not immoral. He is graceful he is surprising he is innocent; and, Monsieur, he is patronized by the Church; he is patronized by your amiable Curé, Monsieur le Docteur Brand." "Oh, father," I exclaimed, "Dr.
N.B. The performance will include a variety of new and surprising feats of Legerdemain never before exhibited. A soirée fantastique! what would I not give to be present at a soirée fantastique! I had read of the Rosicrucians, of Count Cagliostro, and of Doctor Dee.
And so Berlioz remained for half a century simply the composer of the extravagant "Symphonic Fantastique" and the brilliant "Harold in Italy," and, for the rest, a composer of brittle and arid works, barren of authentic ideas, "a better litterateur than musician." However, with the departure of the world from out the romantic house, Berlioz has rapidly recovered.
And where, on the other hand, Berlioz did succeed in being regardful of his program, as in the "Symphonic Fantastique," or in "Lélio," there resulted a somewhat thin and formless music. But Strauss, benefiting by the experiments of his two predecessors, realized the new form better than any one before him had done. For he possessed the special gifts necessary to the performance of the task.
The wild romanticist, the lover of the strange and the lurid and the grotesque who created the "Symphonic Fantastique," never, perhaps, became entirely abeyant.
Schumann was convinced on hearing the "Symphonie Fantastique" that in Berlioz music was returning to its beginnings, to the state where rhythm was unconstrained and irregular, and that in a short while it would overthrow the laws which had bound it so long. So, too, it seems to us, despite all the rhythmical innovations of our time.
"Monsieur will give me the hope to see him, with Monsieur son fils, at my Soirée Fantastique, n'est-ce pas?" he asked, timidly. "Sir," said my father shortly, "I never encourage peripatetic mendicity." The little Frenchman looked puzzled. "Comment?" said he, and glanced to me for an explanation. "I am very sorry, Monsieur," I interposed hastily; "but my father objects to public entertainments."
The most perfect specimens of the works of Berlioz, however, are those in which the music speaks for itself, such as the "Scène aux Champs," and the "Marche au Supplice," in the "Symphonie Fantastique," the "Marche des Pèlerins," in "Harold"; the overtures to "King Lear," "Benvenuto Cellini," "Carnaval Romain," "Le Corsaire," "Les Francs Juges," etc.
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