I already
talked about Hector Berlioz (1803-69) some five years ago (see here), when I
made a number of posts about the Montmartre Cemetery. Yes, that’s where he’s
buried. The present tomb replaced an older one in 1970. Twice a widower, Berlioz had both wives buried here. (Berlioz was
a frequent visitor to the cemetery; it’s also known that he met a last love,
when walking around here.) The portrait of Berlioz was taken from the previous
tomb. It was made by Cyprien Godebski (1835-1909), a renowned sculptor (e.g. a
monumental work in Warsaw of the Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz.)
Actually
Berlioz lived during his last thirteen years quite close to the cemetery, at 4,
rue de Calais. The year he moved in seems also to be the year the building was
constructed (according to the inscription).
Berlioz was
one of the few composers who hadn’t got any early musical training, didn’t play
the piano (he learnt the guitar, the flute…). Originally he had commenced to
study medicine. He took up music quite late and against the will of his
parents. He never became known as an instrumentalist, but of course as composer…
and conductor. Obviously his compositions, which were much appreciated by most
of his colleagues (Liszt, Wagner…) and often more abroad than in France, didn’t always give him substantial, regular revenues and he also had
parallel jobs, more particularly as writer, musical critic, head librarian at
the Paris Conservatory… He’s also known for having written “Treatise on
Instrumentation” (1844). Rather, his more generally accepted greatness and
importance as a composer was achieved later, during the 20th
century.
There is a
rue Berlioz in Paris, but obviously not linked to a place where he lived. But,
at the end of rue de Calais, where he died in 1869, there is a Square Berlioz
(see top picture). Here he got a bronze statue in 1886, but as most other
metallic statues, it disappeared during the Nazi occupation. It was replaced by
the present one – in stone, by George Saupique (1889-1961), in 1948.
Let’s first
listen to “Symphonie Fantastique” (5th movement), composed in 1830
(only three years after Beethoven’s death, two years after Schubert’s death…),
by many considered to be his most outstanding and revolutionary work and
acclaimed by Liszt, Chopin, Paganini, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Heinrich
Heine, George Sand… who attended the premiere...
…then to
the “Hungarian March” from the “Damnation of Faust”, first performed in 1846,
perhaps the most well-known piece by Berlioz…
… and at
last to the very patriotic “Marseillaise” in the Berlioz version (1830).
Posts
