The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz

by Hector Berlioz, David Cairns (Translator)

Writing with unreserved candor and emotion, sparing no one's feelings - least of all his own - Hector Berlioz began, when he was forty-four, to set down a memoir of his musical and personal life. It was completed twenty-one years later, and has long been recognized as one of the greatest of all autobiographies, as the most splendid work of literature ever given us by a man of music.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, France, 19th Century

636 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1870

About the author

Hector Berlioz (December 11, 1803 – March 8, 1869) was a French Romantic composer, conductor, music critic and author, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts (Requiem). Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844). He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a conductor, he performed several concerts with more than 1,000 musicians. He also composed around 50 songs.

Between 1830 and 1840, Berlioz wrote many of his most popular and enduring works. The foremost of these are the Symphonie fantastique (1830), Harold en Italie (1834), the Grande messe des morts (Requiem) (1837) and Roméo et Juliette (1839). Later operatic works include Benvenuto Cellini and Les Troyens (The Trojans). His autobiography, Memoirs, was completed in 1865.

(Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_B.... Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License:)

Reviews

[Jonathan O'Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

“Love or music — which power can uplift man to the sublimest heights? It is a large question; yet it seems to me that one should answer it in this way: love cannot give an idea of music; music can give an idea of love. But why separate them? They are the two wings of the soul.”
- Hector Berlioz


Berlioz’s own memoirs lay bare his larger-than-life character — a man with a conflagration of mercurial feeling at his core; a burning passion for love, for the arts, for all things born of sincerity and with a natural inclination to truth and meaning. Deeply sentimental, occasionally coming off as humorously melodramatic in his writings, there are multiple accounts from his contemporaries, as well as moments shared by himself, in which he was shockingly (to those present) overcome with emotion at the viewing of a work of art; an occasion in which he was practically turned upside down by performances of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as well as a private gathering at which Liszt gave a showing of the Andante from Beethoven’s C# minor sonata come to mind.

This deep feeling could, and did, lend itself to bouts of anxiety/crippling agonies which he describes in fantastic detail as something wholly antithetical to depression but sharing many of the same symptoms. An anxiety born of a want for an “unfathomable happiness” that he could not find in this limited physical existence: ”I want to see, to admire, I want to know love, rapture, the fire of an embrace, I want life in all its grandeur and richness. But my earth-bound body drags me down”. ”Far from desiring death [during these crises] you yearn for life; you long to live it with a thousand times greater energy. It is a prodigious capacity for happiness, which is exasperated for want of use and which can be satisfied only by immense, all-consuming delights equal to the superabundance of sensibility you feel endowed with.”

Aside from several mentions by contemporaries of Berlioz’s eyes, ”deep-set and alternately full of fire and veiled with melancholy”, betraying a glimpse of his true nature, I believe much of this intensity to have been privately introspective (up until the publishing of his personal memoirs of course).


Regarding Berlioz’s music, it feels odd to suggest it was inspired by or influenced by anyone/thing as, listening to them for the first time, they feel so wholly unique to anything that came before (and much that came after). Henri Maréchal said of Berlioz and his works:
”Mysterious, enigmatic, he seemed to us like the Sphynx awaiting Oedipus. His scores when we read them, were so much at variance with what we were daily taught that even the most adventurous minds among us were nonplussed; and when we asked our teachers, they refused to discuss them and confined themselves to advising us not to study them.”

Berlioz, himself, simply stated ”The predominant features of my music are passionate expression, inward intensity, rhythmic impetus, and unexpectedness”

I believe one of the ways he was able to realise art with such variance to the norm was that he was not, in fact, a virtuoso instrumentalist. He could play many instruments including, most notably in these memoirs, the flute and guitar, but was not virtuosic by any means. He was quite proud of the fact that he did not compose with the use of a piano as so many other composers did as it was a limiting, and all-too-often drawn upon well of inspiration for composition which led to predictable and conventional sonorities.

What Berlioz was instead, was one of the greatest orchestrators of all time (hyperbole warranted). A true master of instrumentation as evidenced by his works themselves and the plethora of technical information on the subject that can be found both here in his memoirs and in his ‘Treatise on Instrumentation’. Next to nobody could match Berlioz with respect to his in-depth knowledge of the many facets of the orchestra for which reason we benefit enormously from his detailed analyses of things such as the musical aesthetics of different performing venues, strategic positioning of players of different instruments throughout the body of the orchestra, the characteristics of instruments of his time, the qualities (good and bad) of various orchestras, choruses, sopranos, contralto, tenors etc. throughout Germany, France and Italy and much, much more. Invaluable as a historical music document!

For all of his individuality and innovativeness, Berlioz did indeed have his influences; Shakespeare, Gluck and Beethoven being amongst the primary ones. He was also generous in his voicing of admiration for other composers and instrumentalists such as Carl Maria von Weber, Clara Schumann, Heinrich Ernst (whom he valued as a composer more highly than Chopin!) and the celebrated baritone, Pischek ("Don Giovanni, Romeo and Cortez rolled into one!") just to name a few.

This generosity meant, of course, that he had some great friends who, in turn, championed his works. Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Ernest Legouve, Franz Liszt (witness at his wedding) and Paganini who is deserving of a momentary detour here.
The kernel of the idea for 'Harold in Italy' developed after Paganini, having a Stradivarius Viola he wanted to play in public, asked Berlioz to write a piece for it. Berlioz combined a solo with Orchestral accompaniment and Paganini, feeling it had too many rests in the viola part, passed it up and Berlioz took the work in a different direction. When Paganini finally heard the piece in its entirety he was so overwhelmed he sent a letter to Berlioz:
Beethoven being dead, only Berlioz can make him live again; and I who have heard your divine compositions, so worthy of your genius, humbly beg you to accept, as a token of my homage, 20,000 francs…
These 20,000 francs went on to enable Berlioz the financial breathing space to compose ‘Romeo et Juliette’. Bravo, Nicolo Paganini, bravo!


In addition to composition, Berlioz was also one of the foremost music critics of his time and where he was generous in public displays of admiration, he was equally lavish in doling out brutal critiques. His reviews are an absolute (guilty) pleasure to read as he dismantles the arguments of other critics, disses musicians (”[Mme Ferlotti] was one of those economical singers who know to the nearest franc how much a year their throats are worth to them”), rips into the likes of Castil-Blaze, Lachnith and Fetis for their presumptuous “amendments” to the works of the great masters ("Thus, at an interval of twenty years, each of these beggars paraded in his rags and trampled the rich robes of a prince of music"), and expresses his displeasure at both the French and Italian attitudes to music in his time (”I belong to a nation that has ceased to be interested in the higher manifestation of the mind; whose only god is the golden calf. The Parisians have become barbarians”) ("Music for the Italians is a sensual pleasure and nothing more").

His fiery critiquing leading one postmaster to exclaim, ”By god, you write with a dagger, not with a pen.”
This work inevitably bought him enemies. There are great anecdotes involving the likes of Cherubini and the conductor Habeneck, the latter of which Berlioz believed was purposefully sabotaging performances of his works in order to destroy his career. Berlioz himself considered the role of critic as both a sword and a shield but ultimately lamented the rancour and hatred that it produced.

I have excluded much from this review as I’ve been unable to tame the beast as it is (my 2nd attempt at doing so and I'm still very unhappy with it) but I preferred to offer at least a vomiting of words on the page than nothing at all for this astounding work which merits so much more. I may come back at intervals to add some additional details or to restructure in a more cohesive manner but for now please, PLEASE, go forth and listen to just a little bit of the masterful Hector Berlioz!
I’d recommend ‘Harold En Italie’ or the ‘Symphonie Fantastique’ as good starting points. Or even the beautiful song cycle, ‘Les nuits d'été (Summer Nights)’. Enjoy. You can thank me later! Adieu.

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a roommate in college who insisted, to the annoyance of his theory professor, the “three B’s” were Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz. Okay boys and girls . . . we all know that third one should be Brahms. But David ate drank and (I think) made love to Berlioz. He was constantly humming themes and snippets of melodies—his favorites: the Symphony Fantastic and Harold in Italy. I, of course, was into the sturm und drang German school of Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler and therefore had no time for the frivolous French.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. The Saturday Met broadcast was ‘The Damnation of Faust.’ (I think I had a recording in college I never broke the seal.) I thought about twisting the dial. I wasn’t interested. But I had a thirty minute drive so, what the hell (literally), I will give it that. By the time I got home I ran inside to get it on the Bose towers. There went the afternoon. I didn’t think anyone staged this. Ever. It’s not really an opera—more like a Medieval tableaux. But there it was, in all its quirky glory and I was hooked.

My er-roommate would be proud. At 4:30 on Saturday afternoon, I downloaded ‘Damnation’ to the iPod. Then ‘Les Troyans.’ I cleared almost everything else off the iPod, went on a downloading frenzy and over the past few months celebrated my own personal Berlioz Festival.

There is a reason why Berlioz’ autobiography has been in print for 150 years. Not only did he come in contact with every famous 18th century artist (and there were a slew of them), he brilliantly wrote (not composed) about literally everything. I knew when the memoirs began with one of my favorite quotes from “Macbeth” I was going to be in for a glorious ride:

“Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”

Berlioz wastes no time with his early years and gets right into the good stuff starting with his winning the Prix de Rome (after applying five years in a row). As an eighteen year old, just take a look at his companions: Ingres, Cherubini, Liszt, Hugo, Goethe, Balzac! Hunting trips with Mendelssohn, oh my!

“In an artists life one thunderclap sometimes follows swiftly on another, as in those outsized storms in which the clouds, charged to bursting with electric energy seem to hurl the lightning back and forth and blow the whirlwind. I had just had the successive revelations of Shakespeare and Weber. Now at another point on the horizon I saw the giant form of Beethoven rear up.”

Berlioz was ‘the’ most outspoken critic of his day. It is hard to believe art and music caused riots of passion—unlike our pristine concert and gallery experiences today (not the people who talk during a play). Audiences responded vociferously (I have always wished I’d been in the audience for the premiere of ‘Le Sacre du Printemps.’) Here he describes what happened when a simple violin solo was deleted from a

Gluck opera:
“The scene [in the opera:] was nearly over when: “Wait a minute, what about the violin solo?” I said, in a voice loud enough to be heard. ‘He’s right’ someone said, ‘it looks as if they’re leaving it out. Baillot! Baillot! [the first violinist:] The violin solo!’ At that the whole pit fired up. And then—something unheard of at the Opera—the entire house rose and noisily demanded that the program be carried out according to the bill. While this uproar was proceeding, the curtain came down, At that, the clamor redoubled. The players alarmed by the fury of the pit, hastily abandoned the field; whereupon the enraged public invaded the orchestra, hurling chairs in all directions, overturning stands, bursting the drums. In vain I shouted ‘Gentleman, gentleman, what are you doing? This is madness!’ No one listened to me now. The rioters did not stop until they had laid waste the whole orchestra and left numerous instruments and chairs in ruins.”

And now Berlioz’ denouement:

“That was the bad side of the Draconian criticism-in-action that we exercised at the Opera. The good side was our enthusiasm when everything was going right.”

His humor is as cutting as his criticism. It was a time before music was copyrighted and scores considered sacrosanct. It is hard for us to imagine today that movements of Beethoven symphonies were interchanged and hacks added and deleted at will. Another great moment comes when Berlioz goes to the opening night of the Paris premier of The Magic Flute [Mozart:]. The conductor assumed the audience would hate it and rewrote more than half with his own music. Berlioz, of course, went into a fit of frenzy. Pages and pages of frenzy—that are a hoot to read.

In the days when all psychosis, or genius, were attributed to that curious human organ called the ‘spleen’ artistic temperament was considered eccentric if not mysterious. Today Berlioz would be over medicated with a cocktail of valium, Prozac and Xanax. He passionately writes of his attempt to justify a lovers betrayal. Engaged to a duchess who secretly married into a higher rank (and obviously more money) Berlioz plots to kill the couple by outfitting himself in women’s clothing, appearing at their palace, shooting them, and then putting a bullet to his head. His costume is lost in transit, another is made quickly, he wanders the woods in despair, eating raw birds, and eventually changes his mind. This seemed quite logical in the 1800’s.

Today he would be locked away.

Berlioz had an amazing memory. The detail he garners, years after the fact, is astounding. After finishing his memoirs, he didn’t die. To his own chagrin, he admits the next ten years after finishing the book were more interesting than his entire previous life. So he tacks on another couple dozen chapters. And that last decade was a whopper. Tell, us Hector, how do you ‘really’ feel about Richard Wagner?
My iPod now contains about two days worth of 19th century French romantic bombast. And I am really happy about this.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember once as a poor college student, with little enough money to keep my fridge stocked with bologna and mayo, I splurged on about half a dozen vinyl recordings of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, the result of an obsession over the work at that moment, and an interest in hearing the interpretive differences of the recordings. It was foolish and irresponsible, and something Berlioz himself would have completely understood.

Hector Berlioz was a 19th-century French romanticist and composer of classical long-form works: symphonies, operas, a requiem, along with shorter overtures. Taking a cue from an older contemporary, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Berlioz set out to throw off the shackles of classical tradition, to freely compose more amorphous works dictated less by the classical architectures of themes, variations and rhythms proportioned like the Parthenon, and more like ever-changing, emotionally wrought journeys, up and over hills and valleys, through fire and rain, in sobriety or under the influence of opium. These were "programmatical" works, literal tone paintings with expressely stated literary story implications. Instead of merely being heard as abstractions, which most musical purists prefer, Berlioz actually encouraged people to think of his music cinematically or novelistically. With Harold in Italy, for instance -- a lively easygoing pseudo concerto for viola and orchesta -- the work is literally meant to invoke the landmarks of an Italian journey, like the ones he himself lived during the days of his early conservatory sabbaticals in Rome. Rhythm, themes, variations and, usually, sonata form, were still there in Berlioz, but there was greater flexibility in lines, melodies and more. Berlioz, in fact, was a great champion of the metronome, though his works would seem the least in need of it. Thus, his fastidious metronome markings became the bane of musicians, particularly earlier ones who found his music incomprehensible or unplayable.

This autobiographical memoir was begun in Berlioz's middle age and completed near the last years of his life two decades later. Although he was a very prolific writer of criticism and essays in various Parisian publications -- partly done to stave off inevitable artist starvation -- the effort of writing his own story pained him. This book was an agonizing chore, seemingly never-ending for him.

But the results are glorious and historically essential.

Throughout it, you want to like Berlioz. And sometimes, you do -- adore him, in fact. The guy was witty as hell, master of the sly turn of Gallic insult. And just as much as he could be savage with his critics and rivals, he could also be generous and empathetic and mellow toward them, and others. His run-ins with the old composer Cherubini, an elderly conservatory fusspot who often held Berlioz's fate in his hands, often play like something out of a Marx Brothers farce. And, there are times, you realize what a pain-in-the-ass Berlioz must have been. He was floridly and flamboyantly romantic almost to the point of being stalkerish, at times, with women who obsessed him, such as his first love as a boy, a childhood neighbor, Estelle, whom he barely even knew, but whose memory burned strong in him the rest of his life -- to the point that he was still questing for her near the very end. Does he meet her? Sorry, you'll have to find out yourselves.

Berlioz's romanticism was in the manner of his times. Once visiting St. Peter's in Rome, he was less concerned by the art and the splendor of the place than moved to tears by the fact that he sat in the same pews as the poet Lord Byron.

Berlioz wrote his defining work, the Symphonie fantastique, in direct response to his unrequited obsession over the English Shakespearean actress, Harriet Smithson, whose performances of Ophelia and other tragedian heroines he creepily attended over and over, trying in vain to gain her attentions. He even mounted a massive concert of his own works, at great cost to himself, just to gain her attention, and therein failed again. The symphony is about an artist's descent into madness over his unrequited love, his escape into opium, and his fall into hell. Berlioz, in fact, had tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide over depression, and it's not certain what his "melancholia" might be classed as today. Manic-depressive, bipolar? I'll leave that to the medical experts.

Translator David Cairns may have answered some of these questions in his later massive two-volume definitive biography of Berlioz, which I haven't, and probably never will, read. I'm going to have to trust the horse's mouth for now.

For many years, this book was routinely considered one of the great autobiographies, and I still believe it is, even though it may not satisfy the "kiss-and-tell" lurid expectations of today's readers. Berlioz is more forthcoming with his rivalries and unrequited love obsessions than he was in detailing his family and married life. As a 19th-century man of dignity, he still considered those sacrosanct. He did, in fact, end up marrying the actress Smithson, and even though that didn't pan out eventually, the author never trashes or impugns her, showing nothing but affection and empathy for all her plights. Near the end of the book, Berlioz is forced to view the interment of his wife's body to another grave and the coffin falls apart in the worker's hands and his wife's rotted corpse falls out. It's pretty grim stuff, and didn't help his always precarious mental state any.

Some of Berlioz's greatest life triumphs were his tours of Germany and Russia in mid-life, where he was greeted by Princes and Kings as the great conquering hero, and it's satisfying for Berlioz and the reader to share in these triumphs after the seemingly constant failures and travails of his early life -- one of which was a decades-long approbation by his parents, who violently opposed his choice of music composer as a career. Fortunately, with success, this family rift healed, and it relieved Berlioz greatly.

There are many charming passages in the book; too many to detail. One of the earlier ones is when Berlioz hears commoners in the street singing his songs, the first time in his life he'd received such validation from the masses. He was so moved by the revelry that he pushed through the crowd to join the national guardsmen and the others in the singing.

The one area where the book proves a slog and a slow read, and it rears itself a lot, is the meticulous detail in which Berlioz describes the strengths, weakness and resources of the various orchestras of Europe. It's easy to skim over some of this content, but its value to the historical record of musical perfomance and practice in Europe at the time has to be indisputable. It's an eyewitness account of the state of the art by one of the greatest orchestrators who ever lived.

I tried three times over more than a decade to read this book, but other obligations always pulled me away, but now I've done it and am glad to have shared the passions of this great man. I felt as if he'd told me his story in the comfort of his den.

EG-KR@KY 2021

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Convinced me I didn't want to go to medical school.

[Riley G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5 stars

Wow. I can’t believe I actually finished this! Not because I disliked it or anything like that—I quite enjoyed it—but because it took me a while because of being busy with work and school, and other things, and this wasn’t exactly a short, easy read.

Ah, there’s so much I could say about Berlioz’s Memoirs. They were interesting. They were funny. They were insightful. They were sad.

My favorite parts had to be his Travels in Italy, and Travels in Germany (the specific country of Germany, because he includes Holland, Austria, and Bohemia in that as well.) The adventures (or should I say *mis*adventures) throughout Italy were, while he admitted he found them a tad boring, very amusing. I loved his descriptions of the villages, especially Naples, and of his good friend Crispino, a cheerful little vagabond from Subiaco who would walk all the way to Rome just for Berlioz’s company.
And, of course, I can’t mention his stay in Italy without mentioning that crazy scheme involving Camille Moke. Oh my tater tots, how absolutely, absurdly funny that was to read about, in the words of Berlioz to boot. I laughed so much. (And Michael Jackson’s song ‘Smooth Criminal’ makes me think of that fsr… lol)

If someone asked me to describe Berlioz in as few words as possible, I would say he is an “ambitious drama-queen”. Or, I could describe him in the words he uses: “an unreasonable child”. Both are quite accurate. His writing style is amusing to read, no matter what episode of his crazy life he’s relating. Even his descriptions of grief at the loss of his father, his wife, and of the past—while very sad, they were depicted with imagery that only Hector Berlioz could put forth. Words that could turn anyone into a fainting actress on a stage, with a head full of dreams. He claims that he stinks at prose, but honestly I beg to differ.

It’s almost ten at night rn, so I’m trying to keep this short, but it’s hard. I have so much more to say about this book.

I learned SO MUCH through reading this. About music, about opera, about orchestras, about famous composers, and of course about Hector himself. He’s a character, let me tell you. (As I said above.)
I learned quite a bit about his contemporaries too: Liszt, who was one of his best friends; Paganini, who lost his voice towards the end of his life, and gifted the Berliozes with 20,000 francs! (He commissioned a viola concerto from Berlioz too, which turned into Berlioz’s Harold en Italie); Mendelssohn, who struggled to put up with Berlioz at times; and some others that he didn’t mention quite so much, or aren’t quite so well-known.

I realized, while reading those last few chapters, that people who live to be reasonably old must have it hard. It takes a considerable amount of hope and spirit to still have life and joy when everyone around you begin to die away. I could feel Berlioz’s loneliness as he described the loss of his father, his sister, and both his first and second wife. Ah, that must have been so hard—poor man. Reading his reaction to it all left me a wee bit heartbroken. 😢

On a happier note, I laughed out loud at his descriptions of his opera visits during his student days. Oh dear me, what struggles he went through when none of his close friends shared the same passion for music and poetry as he did! 😂 It’s a good thing he met a passionate stranger to cry with from time to time, and eventually found a kindred spirit in Franz Liszt.

Back to Paganini—Oooh, what a treat it was to read about he and Berlioz’s little friendship! I think the fact that I have been enjoying TwoSet Violin’s B2TSM content, “Sell Out” most of all, made that tasty treat all the richer. How sad that he lost his voice toward the end of his life because of a disease he could have avoided if he weren’t so reckless. I found that a very interesting facet of him to learn about though; I never knew that about him before.

Well, it is likely I shall add first and last lines—as well as perhaps some other great bits and a few more of my own thoughts—tomorrow. It’s late, and my eyes are starting to sting. 🥱😴 I recommend this unique book, especially if you like music, or want to learn more about it. This’ll definitely be coming in handy for my Berlioz story!

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berlioz compiled and wrote this book in the 1850s and 1860s before his final decline and death. Some of it he wrote fresh, but the bulk of it is assembled from memoirs and letters he wrote earlier in his life.
Berlioz is not a composer I am overly familiar with, but I got this book for 50 cents at a tag sale, which I figured was a good deal. Berlioz was thoroughly a product of nineteenth century romanticism, at least as far as his personality goes. He was prone to excessive emotion and sentimentality and fully subscribed to the idea of art as a quasi-religion and the worship of the beautiful. Berlioz also subscribes to the romantic notions of the artist as a uniquely favored great individual, sometimes to the point of incredible conceit when applying it to himself. For example, in the first section of the book, he marvels that his birth was not heralded by wondrous omens such a comets or two-headed calfs. I actually found that very funny. At other displays of similar egotism, I just wanted to tell hector to get over himself.
However, I can forgive Berlioz his occasional egotism because he did, in fact, have a rather difficult life. He was incredibly under-appreciated in his native France - his music was not understood and several influential people took a severe and mostly unfounded dislike to him. He had to surmount enormous obstacles in order to get his music heard and often took on large personal debts in doing so. His personal life also provided him with few emotional or domestic rewards. And despite all of this, he kept on pursuing music and never abandoned his high standards for both compostion and performance.
Berlioz is never boring, either. His memoirs provide a rich and vibrant picture of nineteenth century musical life, both the good and the bad. His writing is full of life, and leaves you feeling as if you really know him not just as a musician but also as a person.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

When discussed in the scholarly literature, Berlioz’s memoir is, I think, taken with a grain of salt on matters of fact, because Berlioz had quite an eventful life and upset a lot of people, and he was also a prolific and creative writer (he even wrote a really weird dystopian novella called Euphonia). This memoir is surely a classic of the form, a long but fun series of self-consciously romantic rants and diatribes and soliloquies. It's animated by a pervasive contradiction: it's a portrait of Paris, which Berlioz seems to really hate, because its population and its institutions just don't really care about music, or performing it properly (according to him), but he can never bring himself to leave, even though he wins the Prix de Rome and is forced to spend time in Italy (how unpleasant (??)), and when he tours Germany and Russia his music does really well and also brings him a spectacular income which is consistently denied him in Paris. He never really explains this problem, although it could simply be because (and this gets somewhat clearer in the final chapters) he is continuously drawn back to the places where he grew up, and a woman he became infatuated with when he was 12 and whom he met up with again in his 60s, almost against all odds.

It really is incredibly ranty and catty and bitchy, which makes it a lot of fun, as primary sources go. In the opening paragraph he writes "I came into the world quite normally, unheralded by any of the portents in use in poetic times to announce the arrival of those destined for glory. Can it be that our age is lacking in poetry?" which is a real bold choice for beginning a memoir, and I still can't tell if he was being ironic (31). At the very end of the first edition, likewise, he signs off with "For you, morons, maniacs, you dogs, you Guildensterns and Rosencrantzes, Iagos, Osrics [he has an explicit and abiding love of Shakespeare], gadflies, crawling worms of every kind: farewell, my friends. I scorn you, and trust to have forgotten you before I die" (473). This, I think, is not ironic: a running motif of the book is a line he utters in italics every time he recounts somebody promising him something (some money, a job or position, a libretto, a commission) and failing to follow through: "This undertaking made gratuitously by His Excellency was no better kept than so many others had been, and that was the last that was, etcetera, etcetera" (487).

Of particular interest is his close friendships with Felix Mendelssohn, Stephen Heller, and Franz Liszt, all of whom seem to sense Berlioz's musical importance and manage to learn from it, which is interesting given that, in the history of Western canonical composers, Berlioz is one of the most isolated, one whose specifically technical innovations, his harmonic language, his absolutely first-rate orchestration (hence his popular textbook), and his rhythmic flexibility, seem to be forgotten, not to admit of any progeny, to fade in the second half of the nineteenth century, even though the French modernists (and perhaps Wagner, although he surely would have kept his influences quiet and absorbed them into his own style) definitely studied his orchestration sincerely. There is a funny story about Berlioz tricking Mendelssohn into playing a piece by Gluck, whom they both greatly admired, without telling him who it was by, and revelling in Mendelssohn's mockery of it, for he had assumed it was by Bellini (292). This banter and trickery is a lot of fun to read about the canonical composers, who were all relatable maniacs getting into shenanigans in their early twenties.

Here's a more transparent and honest passage from one of the postscript chapters he added later, in which he talks about the emotions he has on meeting his lifelong love again in person, but technically for the third time: "He repeats himself, the reader will say. It is only too true. The same endless rhythm: remembrance, regret, a soul clutching at the past, a pitiful blind urge to arrest the present and hold it as it flies, a hopeless struggle with time, a mad desire to realise the impossible, a desperate craving for limitless love. How should I not repeat myself? The sea repeats itself; its waves are all alike" (501). Some of the Memoirs get a bit sentimental, lose their impact in the twenty-first century, perhaps, but a passage like this one works for me, I think, hits pretty hard, Walt Whitman-style. Berlioz did some ridiculous things in his lifetime and it seemed like he didn't really love his two wives, even if he did care for them financially, but with a passage like this you get a sense that he knew, from certain angles, that the outline of his life had a certain pathetic quality, a quality that he strove to overcome at least in his musical work, which carries worthwhile messages even still, right now at this repeating moment.

[Prose And Petticoats]

Berlioz was a dramatic fellow. I love it.

"Oh God! my deadly, awful loneliness; my bleeding heart! Could I bear that leaden weight of anguish, that empty world; that hatred of life; that shuddering shrinking from impossible death?

Even Shakespeare has not described it; he simply counts it, in Hamlet, the cruellest burden left in life.

Could I bear more?"

[Kris Worsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not many composers were also great writers. Berlioz was. In fact, when he was appointed to a judging panel in a composition prize in the 1860s, some complained that he was a critic, and knew nothing about composition, such was his reputation.

There are no great technicalities that non-musicians will struggle with. It's all good, plain prose of the most personal kind, at times heart-wrenching, at times hilarious. If you know any of his music, you will delight in the deeply engrained romanticism of the personality behind the notes. If you don't know this music, you can still wallow in the searingly direct confessional writing of this most personal of memoirs.

It's a true favourite and never fails to move me.

[Angelique · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this, besides being a tad too long in bits, was actually quite entertaining. And this a-hole was always setting his compositions and written works on fire, so it's astonishing that he managed to have this. It's a must read for anyone who likes classical music, as he was writing during the time as so many famous classical musicians. He even stopped Liszt from getting in a duel from a 2 yard range after Liszt drank too much champagne. Berlioz was such a character! Oh, Berlioz!

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta edición contiene 25 capítulos (X,XI, XIV, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXiX, XXX, XXXIII, XXVI, XLIV, XLV, XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII, LVI, LVII, LIX y el post-scriptum), lo que representa aproximadamente un tercio del total de las memorias del gran compositor orquestal francés.

Este extracto contiene, entre otros. la historia de su enamoramiento y posterior matrimonio con la actriz británica Harriet Smithson y un vívido retrato de la escena musical francesa de su época, con sus celos, trastadas y mezquindades (la lengua ácida de Berlioz, y su impaciencia lo ayudaban muy poco en tales terrenos movedizos), así como las dificultades que tuvo para montar y dirigir sus obras (algunas requerían más de quinientos músicos) y sobre todo, que le pagaran por ellas. En estas páginas recuenta la génesis y los primeros pasos de obras como la Sinfonía Fantástica, Harold en Italia, Romeo y Julieta, la Gran Sinfonía Fúnebre y Triunfal, la obertura Carnaval Romano, sus óperas Benvenuto Cellini y Los Troyanos, sus obras dramáticas La Maldición de Fausto y La Infancia de Cristo y su obra sacra la Gran Misa de Difuntos (Requiem).

Esta traducción me dejó la curiosidad por leer una versión más completa de las memorias, pues los múltiples saltos por encima de diez o más capítulos resultan demasiado abruptos. Por lo que he podido leer de otras reseñas, al parecer en esta edición se eliminan pasajes claves sobre su relación con otros compositores de su época como Liszt (apenas mencionado) y Mendelssohn (en la versión recortada apenas menciona que lo conoció en Roma...) entre otros :-(

[Galicius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hector Berlioz (1803-69) describes how he rescued a performance of his “Requiem” when at a crucial moment between “Dies Irae” and “Tuba Mirum” the conductor—perhaps purposely to sabotage—laid down his baton and took out his snuff box whereupon Berlioz—who was next to him—sprung up and conducted the work to the end.

[Jennifer Kessler]

Fascinating insights into the mind and life of the composer. He occasionally takes breaks from colorfully describing his live to describe what is happening in his current situations.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a reason why you listen to composers and don't read them.

[M. Ritchey · Rating 5 out of 5]

do yourself a favor and encounter this lovable, lovable man in his own words!

[Kelly Sedinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlioz has always been one of my very favorite composers, all the way back to when I first encountered his music in ninth grade. His life--full of Romantic ardor, fiery devotion to art, and deep feeling--is almost the Platonic ideal of a suffering artist whose work is never understood or accepted during the artist's life.

In addition to being a great composer, Berlioz was also a scintillating writer, and indeed his skill with the pen was what kept him financially above water for much of his life. Odd that he hated writing and resented having to do it, as it kept him away from his desires to compose. Even in translation I found his writings full of life and vigor, even as he neared the end of his memoir when he realized that the acceptance he desired from Paris's musical culture was never going to be his.

Aspects of Berlioz's life are difficult to read with modern eyes, I must admit. In my youth I found a certain romantic appeal in the way he captured the heart of his first wife, actress Harriett Smithson, with whom he became infatuated when he saw her performing as Ophelia in an English troupe's production of HAMLET. Berlioz haunted her steps and sent her many letters and tried to wear her down, eventually writing his most performed masterpiece, the "Symphonie fantastique", in her honor and scheming to have it performed in her presence. Reading of this now, I see the creepy stalker in Berlioz, and if the greatness of the Symphonie endures, it's not helped so much as hindered by the way by which it came to rise.

Berlioz's Memoirs are not always reliable in their depiction of events, either by the composer sometimes casting himself more sympathetically than he might warrant, or by his simple failure at times to get the sequence of events quite right. Translator and editor Ernest Newman keeps things clear with many footnotes that give proper context and sequencing. The Memoirs also do not always adhere to the same format: much of the book is actually a collection of Berlioz's correspondence as he writes letters to his acquaintances and friends from the countries to which he toured later in life. It is in these passages that the book comes most sparklingly to life, as Berlioz contrasts the musical cultures of Berlin, Vienna, London, and Russia to that of his home city of Paris, a place with which he seem to have lost little love during his life but to which he continually returns. One wonders what might have become of his music had he abandoned Paris and taken up permanent residence in any of the cities where he found musical cultures more to his liking.

The last several chapters are a hard go, because Berlioz's own final years were a long slog of one disappointment after another. Even Berlioz's skill with the pen cannot make it easy to read the musings of a man who succumbs, in the end, to the weight of a lifetime of bitter disappointment (even if more than a bit of it is called down on his shoulders by his own actions). Nevertheless, Berlioz's Memoirs rank as one of the finest meditations on music and art in the 19th century that I know, and his enduring music remains to this day one of the leading artistic influences of my own creative life.

It's taken me years to get around to reading Berlioz's Memoirs, and I am deeply glad that I did.

[Bill FromPA · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was born on 11th December 1803 in La Côte Saint-André, a very small French town in the department of Isère between Vienne, Grenoble and Lyons. During the months which preceded my birth my mother never dreamt, As Virgil’s did, that she was about to bring forth a laurel branch. Nor, I must add – however painful the admission to my vanity – did she imagine she bore within her a flaming brand, like Olympias the mother of Alexander. This is extraordinary, I agree, but it is true. I came into the world quite normally, unheralded by any of the portents in use in poetic times to announce the arrival of those destined for glory. Can it be that our age is lacking in poetry?

An excellent edition and convincing translation by David Cairns, who put so much research into this that it is no surprise he went on to write an authoritative biography of the composer; the foundation of that work is established here.

Cairns in the “Editor’s and Translator’s Note”

I have tried to make my version as English as possible while stopping short of the absurdity of pretending that it is an English book.

The "Editor's Introduction" includes Clapisson’s Les mystères d’Uldolphe in a list of operas Berlioz reviewed in the 1850s.

In 1854, in what was, at that point, the final chapter of the Memoirs (several postscripts, included in this volume, were later added)

I worship Art in all its forms. But I belong to a nation which has ceased to be interested in the higher manifestations of the mind; whose only god is the golden calf. The Parisians have become a barbarian people. In scarcely one rich house in ten will you find a library – I do not say a library of music. They no longer buy books. Execrable novels hired from the circulating library at a penny a volume are sufficient to satisfy the general appetite for literature in every section of the community. In the same way a subscription of a few francs a month paid to a music publisher ensures the right to select from among the infinite quality of twaddle that stuffs the shops some particularly choice example of the genre for which Rabelais had a name.

We are witnessing the triumph of industrialism in Art, raised to power by the crude popular instincts to which it panders, and trampling with brutish contempt on the values it has dethroned. In short, Paris is a city where I can do nothing, where I am considered lucky to fulfil the one task which is expected of me, that of feuilletonist – the only one, many would say, for which I was sent into the world.

[Evan Hurley O'Dwyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlioz had that rare multiplicity of talent to be able to write well in addition to being one of the great composers (is there anyone else at that intersection??). Way funnier than I expected. It was interesting to see how influenced he was by literature (especially Shakespeare, but also Goethe and Byron). He was the Romantic artist par excellence - expressionist and utterly uncompromising as an artist, he wore his heart on his sleeve.

Read this if you want:

- Many entertaining pages of an angry Berlioz ranting and raving about the bureaucratic struggles of being a composer in Paris at the time. He recounts with (valid) righteous indignation multiple stories of the Kafkaesque difficulties of getting paid by the Department of Fine Arts and dealing with unruly musical directors and musicians.

- Many a roasting of a singer or musician who attracts his ire, often by making their own additions or edits to the score. Berlioz's artistic conviction was absolute that one should not interfere with the integrity of another artist's work. In that respect, he would be championed by people today. It was highly amusing to read about his tireless efforts to stop the musical directors in Paris from bludgeoning Beethoven's symphonies with their own edits (the sacrilege!!! - difficult to imagine today).

- Personal anecdotes of a man who kept great company. He was good friends with many of the great artists/writers/composers of his day, e.g. Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Paganini, Balzac, Dumas etc. He knew everyone in the Paris scene, and there are many good stories in there. One of my favourites involved Berlioz trying to calm down a rowdy inebriated Liszt outside on the streets at 2 am after a night of celebration.

The ending sections were surprisingly poignant, especially his moving description of loss after returning home following the death of his father. His subsequent trip to Meylan (last visited as a child) was a masterpiece of nostalgia. It perfectly illustrated nostalgia's ability to paralyse and capture - which reminded me a lot of the scenes of Salvatore returning home at the end of Cinema Paradiso. His subsequent reconciliation with Estelle seemed more like something out of fiction than reality for such a man in his 60s, but he committed fully to his Romantic hero role in following his heart. A fitting full-circle end to the story (rare in a non-fiction).

[Peter Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review of the Cairns' translation.

Superb, although Berlioz is insufferable at points, his self importance being particularly grating, but he was also clearly someone of precise observation and analysis. The whole romantic edifice, the brooding, what would seem to be manic fits, the beloved blown up to ridiculous proportions, and the insistence that the artist is somehow more attuned to existence is all here in its self importance and obsession. That being said, he was also generous and supportive of other artists and there seems to have been little insecurity or envy in the man.

Personality wise he was an odd bird, romantic in outlook but no fan of the massive political and cultural shake up of French society through the 1800s. This is an aristocrat of the spirit, an idea that still plays far too big a role in the analysis and deification of the artist by some. It's a bourgeois conceit and it's rather ridiculous. The Temple of Art!

This is an Englishified translation. Strangely, Cairns in his foreword, claims his approach to be the exact opposite. Menial laborers sound like the crew off East Enders, while the bourgeoisie sound at times like the Edwardian upper classes. It's the only complaint I have.

Finally, the edition I have, which is the Panther paperback of 1970, also contains a very detailed glossary, which offers short, helpful discussions on the important political and cultural events and actors mentioned within the Memoirs. I found they gave the book some additional weight as they will, if read, underline where he looked for inspiration and what he intended to achieve in his work.

There's so much of historical interest on offer here that you might want to look at it, as a portrait of France through the first half of the 19th century, even if you have an allergy to orchestral music and the snooty self importance of the scene.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

For classical music lovers this is 4-5 stars. Berlioz' whole life is capsulated. And he was a writer as well as a composer. Alot of it is florid & romantic writing. The latter letters are just sad. Gets you to reflect on all of life, its sorrows and the disillusionment. A unique figure, one who took the whole orchestra as his instrument. Through the memoirs readers will come to realize his mastery over music, how he could hear wrong notes, and how he could compose with such breadth of understanding not only of musical forms but of human pathos. His letters to the loves of his life, and even to his dear friends, display great affection, imagination, and expression.

For me, I just got to thinking on the sadness of life. I was reading and thinking: This man's whole life is being read by me in a matter of two weeks' time. It took some pausing, and some reflection, to imagine myself in his shoes. This was pre-telegraph! We look back on these days and study them as history or as golden ages in opera or symphonies, but for Hector, this was his time, his era. Very fascinating to behold how massive an undertaking were these performances. All of the expenses, from the musicians to the policemen guarding the doors, and all the sacrifices of time and of feeling from Berlioz. It's a great read for classical musicians, but even still, probably too long of a book (530 pgs). Again, as I was trying to finish up the book I found myself skimming a little and then felt bad for it b/c, like, it's this dude's whole life, it took him hours & seasons to compose these writings and there I was trying to wrap it up within the hour. But if you do read it, turn on some of his symphonies to listen to in the background while you're reading.

[Nathalie Hasson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite book of all time. First of all, I love discovering the lives and minds of historical artists. Especially when it's autobiographies. Especially when it's classic composers. And wow, Berlioz did NOT disappoint.

It's not as much his creative process that captivated my attention as the discovery of concrete struggles of a composer at this period that have captivated me. How to make copies of your scores. How to travel with them. How to adapt your creations to the available instruments and players in each town where you want to conduct a concert. And of course, how to make money from your music.
As to his personality, what can I say... He think so highly of himself and is so petty, it's absolutely hilarious. He seems utterly insufferable, to my greatest delight.

I've read it three times and I will keep coming back to it, because I know I'll always have a great time in Berlioz's company!

[Javier Mondaza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlioz es un compositor muy desconocido para los músicos y poco se suele hablar de él más allá de su Symphonie Fantastique. Sin embargo, Berlioz nos brinda de primera mano cómo era la vida de un compositor en la Francia del siglo XIX y nos muestra su agudo ingenio y espíritu creativo. A partir de estas memorias me he introducido a su obra y me he maravillado ante su innovación orquestal y riqueza de imaginación. Sin duda alguna, un compositor singular.

[Jozef Vizdak · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love cannot give an idea of music; music can give an idea of love. But why separate them? They are two wings of the soul."

"He pretended that he hated mankind - he, whom the least sign of sympathy moved to tears. He hated only the profanum vulgus, like Horace, like all artists and poets. In reality, he was not merely sincere, he was naive in the best sense, like Haydn, whose naivety he was fond of laughing at."

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating picture of life and politics in the world of 19th century musicians. Its best parts read like a gossipy letter from a friend. What an amazing life Berlioz led! The editorial appendices are excellent.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely tremendous. Even if you were not interested in music, this is simply a great work of literature. Fascinating insights into the life, times and work of Berlioz and the artistic world and zeitgeist of his age. what a musician, what an artist, what a human being!

[Alex Stephenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm actually rather amazed at how good this was - Berlioz can tell a good yarn and his perspective on music alone is fascinating to read, but you also really get a sense of his psyche and how it dismantled itself over time. Genuinely heartbreaking by the end.

[lau · Rating 5 out of 5]

lo terminé de leer en camino a ver un concierto de la sinfonía fantástica.. no me aburrió un segundo.. de la manera en la que berlioz escribe su vida pude sentir la gracia de sus anécdotas y el pesar que lo acompaña.. ahora solo queda revivir su locura de amor

[Luned · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastically written, heart-rending, and vivid account of the life of a uniquely brilliant artist, and a fascinating insight into the musical world of 19th century Europe!

[Annm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely an interesting character. Read in translation, so I don’t know how much of the eloquence is from the translator, but I appreciated how well-written and readable it is.

[Yu Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

So engaging and full of feelings! Berlioz was one of a kind in his originality; he was unapologetically opinionated; he was a brilliant writer. Highly highly recommend