Evenings With the Orchestra

by Hector Berlioz

In this delightful and now classic narrative, written by the brilliant composer and critic Hector Berlioz, readers are made privy to 25 highly entertaining evenings with a fascinating group of distracted performers.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Humor, France, Nonfiction, French Literature

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1852

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

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was like being in a dysfunctional relationship with a dead genius.

When I began it, I loved it.
I found it hilarious but also frustrating, fascinating etc., and then it started to get on my nerves and bore me, to frustrate me and piss me off, and by the time I got to the end I was so ready to be done with that I wanted to throw it out the window.

[Willem Hoekstra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Veel kaf bij het koren. Berlioz schetst met veel ironie een weinig flatteus beeld van het Parijse muziekleven in de eerste helft van de 19e eeuw. Maar daar gebruikt hij wel heel veel woorden en terzijdes voor.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

On first reading, not as good as his Memoirs, though the second epilogue comes close to the tone and wittiness of that work. I feel I may appreciate it more on a second and third reading, as its framing device lends itself to less continuity than his Memoirs, despite the fact that they, too, are composed of chunks and passages taken from other writings. The result is a hodge-podge of stories, essays, and observations -- some brilliant, some more average in execution -- of France, music, and the life of Berlioz.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't originally on my reading list, but a Shelfari friend recommended it as one of Berlioz's best books. The premise is that the players in an orchestra have conversations during boring operas, telling stories and so forth. It is a miscellaneous collection of satire, music criticism, music biography and other things; very uneven but some is very funny. There's even a science fiction story set in 2330. Some of the items are in other works by Berlioz which I had already read.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not only an original composer, Berlioz was also a gifted writer. Musical life in the mid-nineteenth century as seen by an unusual character striving to reach its center.

[Carl Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

extremely witty and funny collection of orchestra pit stories and jokes.

[Harpoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate. I'll assume you are seriously interested in Berlioz and the music of his era (or you wouldn't be here). The frame story is that Berlioz visits the orchestra in an opera theater of an un-named city. The musicians have to play a lot of mediocre music along with the gems of the contemporary opera literature, and when the music is boring, many of them stop playing and pass the time telling stories or gossiping. Some of the stories are Berlioz's own, and some are told by the (fictional) characters.

When Berlioz is talking about musicians and music, the stories are great. There are biographical sketches of now-unknown real composers (Spontini and Mehul) which are wonderful to read. There is a story of a composer's revenge, in which Benvenuto Cellini plays a minor role There's a longish fantasy about a far-future musical community and a composer's faithless mistress. The epilogue recounts Berlioz's attendance at a series of monster concerts in Bonn celebrating the unveiling of a Beethoven statue. All this is pretty good stuff, and Berlioz is a great writer. (Or his translator Jacques Barzun is; many of the footnotes are interesting in their own right.)

Where the book drags is in the many sections where Berlioz complains about music audiences and theater management, who don't adequately appreciate what is good in music. He is eloquent and often amusingly catty, so these sections are interesting at first, but they go on and on, and after a while I just skipped them when I saw him starting another rant.

All in all, I found it a (mostly) entertaining read, but can't wholeheartedly recommend it unless you're a Berlioz partisan.

[Joel Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part comedy, and part music critique this charming work by composer Hector Berlioz (literary; not musical) is worth a read by musician and non-musician alike. I was rather taken aback by the second epilogue and the manner in which the book ended, but given the idiosyncrasies of Hector Berlioz perhaps it isn't so surprising after all. Definitely a gem.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy getting such long stories from the musicians, but was interested enough to read this all, though I will admit to skimming a few sections.

[Gijs Grob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloemlezing van Berlioz uit zijn eigen tussen 1833 en 1852 verschenen essays en recensies, briljant vormgegeven in een raamvertelling waarbij de componist bij een operaorkest op bezoek gaat die tijdens voorstellingen van platvloerse opera's het spelen laten en elkaar sterke verhalen vertellen.

Berlioz blijkt een groot verteller en literator met een stijl, die zich kenmerkt door zijn grenzeloze enthousiasme (vooral voor Gluck, Spontini en Weber), zijn bijtende satire, zijn uiteenlopende (zij het altijd muzikale) onderwerpen en zijn stijlexperimenten. Hij rekent genadeloos af met de commerciële en inspiratieloze operacultuur van zijn land en schetst in Euphonia een gedroomde maatschappij waar de muziek wèl belangrijker wordt gevonden dan geld en ego.

Ook al zijn Berlioz' onderwerpen soms nogal tijdsgebonden, zijn boek is dat nergens. Daarvoor is het te onderhoudend, te origineel en te enthousiast geschreven. Iedere muziekliefhebber en zeker iedere operaliefhebber zal het met veel plezier lezen.

[Laurie Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-kept secret, at least from me. I can't believe it's taken me all these years to discover this book. I've always loved Berlioz's music but I had no idea he was such a sharp-penned funny writer. It's amazing how the complaints professional musicians make today are just the same as the ones they made in the middle of the 19th century. Brilliant. Loved it.