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biography - Louis Hector Berlioz

Louis Hector Berlioz (December 11, 1803 - March 8, 1869), French Romantic composer best known for the work Symphonie Fantastique, subtitled “An episode in the life of an artist,” first performed in 1830. He was born in the south of France at La Cote-St. Andre near Grenoble. In 1869 he died in Paris and was buried in the Cimeti�re de Montmartre.

He became involved early on with the French romantic movement in Paris. Among his friends were writers such as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Honor� de Balzac. Later, Theophile Gautier would write:

“Hector Berlioz seems to me to form with Hugo and Delacroix the Trinity of Romantic Art”

Berlioz is said to have been innately romantic; experiencing emotions deeply from early childhood. This manifested itself in his weeping at passages of Virgil as a child, and later in a series of love affairs. Several times his affections were unrequited: his love for the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson was the inspiration for his Symphonie Fantastique. He planned to murder Marie Moke, another of his loves, and then commit suicide, after he heard that she was to marry the piano maker Pleyel. However, Berlioz was residing in Rome at the time under a Prix de Rome scholarship, and she was in Paris. He got as far as Nice before giving up the idea.

Hector Berlioz is buried in the Cimeti�re de Montmartre with his two wives, Harriet Smithson (died 1854) and Marie Recio (died 1862). Berlioz's remains are due to be moved to the The Panth�on in 2003, the year of the bicentenary of his birth.

The The Hector Berlioz Website is to be found at www.hberlioz.com.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article licensed under GFDL.

The music of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is characterized by irregular phrase lengths, odd rhythms, and vivid dramatic expression. As a pivotal early Romantic figure, he wrote many works that fell outside the known and accepted musical forms of his time.

recommended recordings

	*Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique / Davis, Concertgebouw*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz Conductor: Sir Colin Davis Ensemble: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Uni/Philips - #11425 / July 7, 1987 Click here for more information
Sir Colin Davis's 1974 account of the Symphonie fantastique with the Concertgebouw Orchestra has ranked among the best since the day it was made: refined, sensitive, and full of passionate reverie, it's a high-voltage performance that never seems overdriven. Avoiding the tendency of many conductors to treat the work in episodic terms, Davis presides over a reading that is sustained by a firm sense of structure and argument. He elicits fine playing from the Concertgebouw orchestra, whose...Read more

	*Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, etc / Paray, Detroit SO*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz Conductor: Paul Paray Ensemble: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Uni/Mercury Classics - #34328 / February 16, 1993 Click here for more information
This classic from 1960 is among Paul Paray's best recorded efforts, and that is at dizzying heights. The artist sticks to the score closely, yet utilizes the wide range of the conductor's art to mesmerizing effect. The waltz is demonic, the Sabbath manaical, the reveries and passions neurotic to the point that we have a portrait of Berlioz himself with all his obsessions. Paray is really the only conductor to give us all this and not have the work run away from him. Throughout, the Detroit Symphony revels in its virtuosity, with power to burn, tossing off wind passages in particular as if they were bon-mots. For my taste, this is one of the finest Berlioz recordings of all time.

	*Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette / Davis, Borodina, Moser, Miles*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz Conductor: Sir Colin Davis Performer: Olga Borodina, Alastair Miles, et al. Ensemble: Bavarian Radio Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Uni/Philips - #42134 / July 23, 1996 Click here for more information
Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette is a typical hybrid. While it seems that Berlioz was absolutely incapable of writing music that was not inspired by literature, he was just as incapable of sticking to the story once his inspiration got flowing. His version of Shakespeare's drama has a "reconciliation" ending nowhere to be found in the original, and Berlioz spends a good part of the work illustrating incidental scenes completely irrelevant to the main thread of the plot (like Queen Mab, for...Read more

	*Ravel: Schéhérazade, Berlioz: Nuits d'été / Norman, Davis*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz, Maurice Ravel Conductor: Sir Colin Davis Performer: Jessye Norman Ensemble: London Symphony Orchestra Uni/Philips - #12493 / July 7, 1987 Click here for more information
The most important thing to remember about Les Nuits d'été is that there's only one quick song and one moderate one to balance out three long, slow ones. Although the work is not a cycle in any coherent sense, most performers do the pieces in Berlioz's final order: the quick one first, then the three slow ones, then the moderate one. This makes for a very long middle. Norman's rich, dark voice might be thought a bit heavy for this particular order, but she has another card up her sleeve: Her...Read more

	*Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été; et al / Crespin, Ansermet*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz, Maurice Ravel, et al. Conductor: Ernest Ansermet Performer: Régine Crespin, John Wustman Ensemble: Suisse Romande Orchestra Uni/Decca - #460973 / August 10, 1999 Click here for more information
Here is a great French artist singing the songs of her native country in her native language, with the natural inflection and empathy of one to the manner born. Her voice is beautiful, pure throughout a huge range, focused, intense, infinitely nuanced; she can make it float ethereally or glow with a shimmering radiance, brighten and darken it and carry on two-way conversations. Identifying complete with each song, she communicates its mood, atmosphere, character, expression. She captures the pensive dreaminess, plaintive yearning, outpouring of grief and lamentation, as well as the gaiety and lighthearted teasing of Berlioz' many-faceted Les Nuits d'Été. In Ravel's Shéhérazade, her voice becomes part of the exotic, languidly oriental atmosphere created by the lush, sensuous, glittering orchestration, surging up with the sweeping buildups to thrilling climactic high Gs and B-flats, matching the tremulous flute solo in the second song. The orchestra plays wonderfully, exploiting Ravel's infinitely imaginative, vivid coloration to the utmost. Crespin evokes the secretive intimacy, dream-drugged passion and ice-bound rigidity of Debussy's Songs of Bilitis. In the Poulenc songs, the contrast between the almost tear-choked mournfulness and the frolicking humor is riveting. John Wustman's splendid partnering adds greatly to the enchantment of this delightful recording. --Edith Eisler

	*The Royal Edition - Berlioz: Requiem, etc / Bernstein*
	Hector Berlioz(Composer), et al Composer: Hector Berlioz Conductor: Leonard Bernstein Performer: Stuart Burrows, Jennie Tourel Ensemble: French National Radio Chorus, ORTF National Orchestra, et al. Sony Classics - #47526 / July 28, 1992 Click here for more information
Berlioz' Requiem needs a performance of spontaneous brilliance and almost manic intensity to come off. The reason is simple. The big movements--the Dies Irae sequence and Lachrymosa--use a huge chorus and a full orchestra including four brass bands (stationed in the four corners of the concert hall), eight sets of timpani (10 players), and additional percussion. After that, everything else sounds anti-climatic, unless the conductor somehow manages to keep the tension flowing through the quiet...Read more

	*Berlioz: Les Troyens / Dutoit, Lakes, Pollet, Voigt, et al*
	Composer: Hector Berlioz Conductor: Charles Dutoit Performer: John Mark Ainsley, Michel Beauchemin, et al. Ensemble: Montreal Symphony Chorus, Montreal Symphony Orchestra Uni/London Classics - #43693 / October 18, 1994 Click here for more information
In the absence of Colin Davis's pioneering Les Troyens recording on Philips (temporary, one hopes), Charles Dutoit's more recent 1993 outing with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus gives a vital, idiomatically French account of the opera, despite mixed success with the singers. Few operas are as nightmarish to cast as this epic about the Trojan War and its aftermath, and it would have been better made either a few years earlier when Plácido Domingo and Jessye Norman were still...Read more

works & recordings

Browse Berlioz, Hector
General Arias Ballads Ballets Boleros Cantatas Caprices Choruses Hymns Interlude Marches Minuets	Monodrama Operas Oratorios Overtures Requiems Scherzos Song Cycle Songs Symphonies Te Deums Trios Villanella

resources

The Hector Berlioz Page - (by Michael Tepper) many reviews; links.
Hector Berlioz - (biography, discography)
Berlioz Society Home Page - News, publications, upcoming performances, reviews, bibliography, recent recordings, links.
ClassiNet: Hector Berlioz - Picture, biography.
Berlioz' Faust - Background notes on "La Damnation de Faust".
Hector Berlioz - Life, discussion of the compositions, sound files, links, bibliography.
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) - Message board and live chat about the life and works.
Berlioz Music Scores - Scores which may be both viewed and played on line as midi files.
Hector Berlioz mailing list - Page associated with the Hector Berlioz Mailing list. Provides links and galleries.

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