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Updated: June 15, 2025
That is what one would wonderingly ask oneself if one had not seen, for the last century, the indifference of the State to Art. What might not Berlioz have done if the means had been given him, or if his works had found a place in the fêtes of the Revolution? Unhappily, one must add that here again his character was the enemy of his genius.
Berlioz in his book "A Travers Chants" writes in a fine burst of enthusiasm of this scena: "It is impossible for any listener to fail to hear the sighs of the orchestra during the prayer of the virtuous maiden who awaits the coming of her affianced lover; or the strange hum in which the alert ear imagines it hears the rustling of the tree-tops.
With Baudelaire, Berlioz could have said, "L'énergie c'est le grâce suprême." For the beauty of this his masterpiece lies in just the delineating power, the characteristic of this crude, vigorous, unadorned melody. Doubtless to those still baffled by its nudity, his music appears thin. But if it is at all thin, its thinness is that of the steel cable.
Berlioz says that it takes a long time to discover musical Mediterraneans and still longer to learn to navigate them. The madrigal was a musical Mediterranean. It was the song of the people touched by the culture of the church. It was the priestly art of cathedral music transferred to the service of human emotion. The Italian madrigal had a specifically Italian character.
Above all, one must not make the mistake of contrasting Berlioz with Wagner, either by sacrificing Berlioz to that Germanic Odin, or by forcibly trying to reconcile one to the other.
Besides this, our first tenor has lost his voice, and will be replaced next month by C., who sang "Tannhauser" here in November on trial. I expect Berlioz about the middle of February. Do you know the score of his "Damnation de Faust?" My "Faust" symphony is finished. There are three movements: "Faust," "Gretchen," and "Mephistopheles." I shall bring it to you at Zurich next summer.
We know the Romantic reaction of Schumann, uttered in smaller cyclic forms; in Berlioz is almost a complete abandonment of pure music, devoid of special description.
Berlioz replied lately to a letter of mine, in which I had asked him, amongst other things, to make me a present of all his scores, if he could get them gratis. That he cannot do, because his earlier publishers will give him no more free copies. I confess that it would interest me very much to study his symphonies carefully in full score.
You are speaking of the old Mme. Berlioz, the one who was abandoned; I am speaking of the young and pretty and loved one. Well, that is myself! "And Recio went out and banged the door after her. "Legouvé said to Berlioz, 'Who told you this abominable thing? I suppose she who did it; and then she boasted about it into the bargain. And Berlioz did nothing "How could I? I love her."
The four composers most frequently heard at the Châtelet were Saint-Saëns, Wagner, Beethoven, and Berlioz. Berlioz is almost the exclusive property of the Châtelet. Not only have they performed his works there more frequently than anywhere else, but they are better understood there than in other places.
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