Berlioz: Cantatas

Description

Hector BERLIOZ (1803-1869)Prix de Rome CantatasHector Berlioz was born in the French province of Is?¿re, theson of a doctor, in a family of some local substance. As a child he was taughtprincipally by his father, and was swayed by various enthusiasms, including anoverwhelming urge towards music that led him to compose, not for the piano, aninstrument he did not play, but for a sextet that included his music-teacher'sson, a horn-player, and the flute, which he played himself. He later took theopportunity of learning to play the guitar. At the insistence of his father, heembarked on medical studies, taking his first qualification at Grenoble, beforemoving to Paris. Three years later he abandoned medicine in favour of music,his enthusiasm increased still further by the opportunities offered in Paris bythe Opera and by the library of the Conservatoire, of which he was later toserve as librarian. In earlier years he had not been idle as a composer, but inParis he prudently took lessons from Le Sueur, whose Conservatoire class heentered in 1826. In the following years he attempted the Prix de Rome, theaward established for musicians by Napoleon, which brought with it a stay oftwo years in Rome at the Villa Medici, a significant honour for any ambitiousyoung composer. At his fourth attempt, in 1830, Berlioz was successful.            In 1829 Berlioz had seen Shakespeare's Hamlet for the firsttime, with Charles Kemble as the Prince and the Irish actress Harriet Smithsonas Ophelia. The experience was overwhelming and in the season he had theopportunity to see much more, sharing in the popular adulation of HarrietSmithson, with whom he fell violently in love, at first to be rejected, leadingto his autobiographical Symphonie Fantastique. It was only after his returnfrom Rome, where he had spent two years, and when her popularity began to wane,that she agreed to be his wife, a match that brought neither of them muchhappiness.             In the following years Berlioz remained an outsider to theFrench musical establishment. He earned a living as a critic, while as acomposer and conductor he won more distinction abroad. Both then and in lateryears he was seen as the very type of an individual genius, the romanticartist, driven to excess by enthusiasms and paranoid in reaction to criticismor opposition, as his Memoires show. After the death of his wife in 1854 he wasable to marry the singer Marie Recio, with whom he had enjoyed a relationshipalready of some twelve years. Her sudden death in 1862 and that of his sonLouis, a naval officer, in 1867, saddened his final years. He died in 1869.            There was a conservative formality about the Prix de Rome.The first stage of the competition tested the technical competence of thecandidates, particularly in counterpoint. Those successful in the first