Berlioz On Music

As a composer, Hector Berlioz embodied his century as the quintessential Romantic artist. Niccolo Paganini called him "Beethoven's only heir," and for a young Richard Wagner, he was dazzling as a composer, orchestra conductor, and critic. But Berlioz was known as much for his writings as for his music, and for decades Berlioz scholars have stressed the need for a good English-language anthology of his criticism. Featuring new translations and commentary by Katherine Kolb and Samuel N. Rosenberg,Berlioz on Music: Selected Criticism 1824-1837 is that volume. Berlioz's centrality as a critic results from his literary brilliance, his location in Paris -- the music capital of the nineteenth century -- and his 28-year tenure at the powerfulJournal des debats. As one of its founding editors and principal writers, Berlioz contributed about 250 articles to the publication.Berlioz on Music comprises articles from the first 14 years of Berlioz's public writings, given in chronological order and, with few exceptions, in their entirety. Following chronology affords an overview of Berlioz's evolution as critic and of a key phase in the development of modern musical culture. The volume also presents explanatory data in engagingly composed introductions and footnotes, which elucidate Berlioz's references to persons, musical and literary works, historical events, and more. The reader is allowed to follow musical events during one of the richest periods in French cultural history, including the revolutionary decade surrounding 1830, a year marked by Victor Hugo's victory for the Romantics in the Classical bastion of the Théâtre-Français, by the premiere of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony, and by the toppling of the Restoration monarchy. The result is an engaging collection of Berlioz's lively prose, presented with scholarly rigor and rendered in accessible English. Music historians, both professional and amateur, as well 19th century European history enthusiasts will findBerlioz on Music a compelling introduction to one of the richest periods of French culture.

A "Reading Rainbow" Feature Title Zum, zum, buzz.... zum, zum, buzz... What's that strange buzz coming from the double bass? Berlioz has no time to investigate, because he and his bear orchestra are due at the gala ball in the village square at eight. But Berlioz is so worried about his buzzing bass that he steers the mule and his bandwagon full of magicians into a hole in the road and gets stuck. Time is running out, and if a rooster, a cat, a billy goat, a plow horse, and an ox can't rescue the bandwagon, who can? As the suspense mounts, intricate borders reveal the village animals making their way to the square one by one. When the clock chimes eight, the animals, ready to dance, have filled the square-but there's no sign of Berlioz. Jan Brett's glorious illustrations invite the eye to linger over exquisite details and humorous nuances that enhance the story. This delightful cumulative tale is one that will be looked at again and again.

This book examines how Berlioz used musical forms to represent a narrative, and to depict emotions such as madness or love.

An exploration of fantastic soundworlds in nineteenth-century France, providing a fresh aesthetic and compositional context for Berlioz and others.

Still chiefly known as the extravagant composer of the Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz was an artist caught in the crossfire between the academic classicism of the French musical establishment and the romantic modernism of the Parisian musical scene. He was a thinker in an age that invented both the religion of art and the notion of the 'genius' who preached and practised it. This Companion contains essays by eminent scholars on Berlioz's place in nineteenth-century French cultural life, on his principal compositions (symphonies, overtures, operas, sacred works, songs), on his major writings (a delightful volume of memoires, a number of short stories, large quantities of music criticism, an orchestration treatise), on his direct and indirect encounters with other famous musicians (Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner), and on his legacy in France. The volume is framed by a detailed chronology of his life and a usefully annotated bibliography.

Explores the rich and varied interactions between nineteenth-century science and the world of opera for the first time.

The Life of Berlioz situates the celebrated French musician in the vibrant and highly politicized musical culture of the periods of the Bourbon Restoration, July Monarchy, Second Republic, and Second Empire in which he lived and worked as composer, conductor, concert manager, and writer. The author of the Symphonie fantastique was indeed possessed of a fertile and fantastical imagination; but the common image of Berlioz as a misunderstood and mistreated genius obscures both the solidity of his work as a musical architect and the reality of his position as one sometimes favored by those in power. Berlioz is the quintessential romantic composer by dint of the conspicuous intermingling of art and life that marks his musical and literary output. Studying this away from the subjective sentimentality that can still mar studies of the composer in France, serves only to enhance the uncommon radiance of his music and uncommon esprit of his art.