Biography
Childhood at La Cote Saint-Andre
1803 - born
On 7 February Louis Berlioz, a young doctor from La Cote Saint Andre in the Departement of Isere, and Marie-Antoinette-Josephine, daughter of Nicolas Marmion, a lawyer from Meylan, are married in her home town on. She is 18 years old, he is 27. Louis-Hector Berlioz is born at 5.00pm on 11 December at No. 83 rue nationale, La Cote Saint-Andre and is baptised in the chapel of the Church of Saint Andre (14 December). His paternal grand-father Nicolas Marmion and great-grand-mother Sophie Brochier are, respectively, his god-father and god-mother. Dr and Madame Berlioz will have five other children of whom two will reach adulthood, Nanci and Adele.
ca 1811
Following the closure of the local seminary, Dr Louis Berlioz takes charge of his son’s education.
ca 1815
Berlioz receives his first communion in spring where he undergoes his first musical experience. He meets Estelle Dub?uf, his "first passion", in Meylan, now a suburb of Grenoble. Berlioz learns to read Virgil in the original Latin and translate it into French under his father’s tuition.
1817 - first composition
First compositions, including the Pot-pourri for six instruments, now lost. Imbert, the second violin of the Theatre de Lyon and engaged by the Mayor of La Cote to give lessons to the musicians of the National Guard, becomes Hector’s music teacher. Hector learns to play the flute.
1818
Composition of two quintets for flute and strings. A theme from one of them is reused later in the overture to Les Francs-Juges.
1819
In January Dr Berlioz buys a flute and later a guitar for his son who begins lessons on the instrument with his new teacher Dorant.Berlioz composes Le Depit de la bergere, which is published by Auguste Le Duc. The autograph is lost. The music was reused years later for the Sicilienne in Beatrice et Benedict. Composition of a piece for voice and guitar, Je vais donc quitter pour jamais, text by Florian. It will be reused for the first movement of the Symphonie fantastique (bars 3-16).
Student years in Paris and Italy
1821 - daparting from Paris
Berlioz is made bachelier es lettres at Grenoble on 22 March. He departs for Paris to read medicine in late October. First visit to the Opera, where he sees a performance of Gluck’s masterpiece Iphigenie en Tauride (November). Shortly after he writes to his sister Nanci about this first experience.
1822
He frequents the Conservatoire library, where he seeks out the scores of Gluck, which are available to the public, and copies of large parts of Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride and Iphigenie en Aulide. These copies in Berlioz’s hand have survived. Berlioz hears Spontini’s music for the first time when he attends performances of La Vestale and Fernand Cortez at the Opera. Later he will meet the composer and become a champion of his music. When Spontini dies in 1851 Berlioz will write his obituary. He decides to devote himself to music. He is introduced by a friend to Lesueur, director of the Royal Chapel and professor at the Paris Conservatoire, who gives him encouragement.
1823
Berlioz writes his very first article at the age of 20, in the form of a letter to the journal Le Corsaire, which is published in the issue of 12 August 1823 During a visit to La Cote in spring and early summer his family fails to make him abandon his interest in music, he wins over his father but his mother curses him. Composition of Estelle et Nemorin (now lost); the libretto is by Hyacinthe-Christophe Gerono, after Florian’s poem of the same title. During the winter he writes an oratorio entitled Le Passage de la mer Rouge (The Crossing of the Red Sea; now lost) and shows it to Lesueur, who admits him as one of his private pupils.
1824
He is made Bachelier es sciences physiques (12 January). Composition of the Messe solennelle, which is rehearsed (December) but not performed. He makes changes to it after he hears it at the rehearsal. He finally abandons medicine and embarks on a career in music. In December he attends a performance of Der Freischutz at the Odeon Theatre; this is Berlioz’s first acquaintance with the music of Weber.
1826
He is eliminated from the preliminary round of the Prix de Rome competition, his fugue submitted for consideration is unsuccessful (early July). He enrols at the Conservatoire in classes of Lesueur and Reicha (October). He completes Les Francs-Juges in October. The libretto is later rejected by the Opera (May 1828).
1827 - engaged as a chorister
He is engaged as a chorister at the Theatre des Nouveautes, to supplement his reduced monthly allowance from his father (March onwards). He enters the Prix de Rome competition; his cantata La Mort d’Orphee does not win any of the two prizes (late July). The judges reject it on the ground that it was not playable (on the piano). He composes the overture Waverley, inspired by Walter Scott’s Waverley Novels. He sees two plays by Shakespeare staged by an English theatrical group at the Odeon: Hamlet on 11 September and Romeo and Juliet on 15 September. Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress plays the roles of Ophelia and Juliet. Berlioz discovers Shakespeare and falls instantly in love with the interpreter of two of his most famous characters. The second performance of the Messe solennelle takes place at Saint-Eustache on 22 November.
1828
He hears Beethoven’s Third and Fifth symphonies played at the Conservatoire, conducted by Habeneck (March onwards). Berlioz gives his first orchestral concert on 26 May. He enters the Prix de Rome competition for the second time; his cantata Herminie wins the second prize (July). He discovers Goethe’s Faust, through Nerval’s French translation, which will be the inspiration behind the Huit scenes de Faust that he starts later in the year (September onwards).
1829
Huit scenes de Faust is published as opus 1 (late March-early April); Berlioz will later withdraw all the unsold copies. This work will in future be developed to form parts of La Damnation de Faust. Le Ballet des ombres is published as opus 2 (December). Some music of this work will many years later be reused in the scherzo of Romeo et Juliette. He hears Beethoven’s last quartets (March onwards).
Berlioz’s cantata La Mort de Cleopatre fails to win the prize at his third attempt to win the Prix de Rome (July). He gives his second public concert on 1 November, the programme consists of works by himself and Beethoven. Composition of Neuf melodies irlandaises, setting Thomas Moore’s poems to music. Revision of Les Francs Juges; the new libretto by Humbert Ferrand requires 5 or six new movements; there is no evidence that Berlioz wrote them. The new libretto is rejected by the Opera in any case. Berlioz reuses some of the music from the opera in his later works notably the Symphonie fantastique, Symphonie funebre et triomphale and the Roman Carnival scene of Benvenuto Cellini. Of the opera the overture and some fragments survive. Berlioz conducted a number of performances of the work during his career, and it has remained in the repertoire ever since.
1831 - in Rome
He arrives in Rome in March 1831 via Marseilles and Florence, and joins his fellow laureates at the French Academy in the Villa Medici. The Director of the Academy at the time was the painter Horace Vernet. He meets Mendelssohn in Rome for the first time; they will meet again some years later when Berlioz goes on his first concert tour in Germany (1843). He receives a letter from Camille Moke’s mother informing him that she has called off their engagement and married M. Camille Pleyel, a rich piano manufacturer (mid April). He decides to return to Paris to take revenge and kill all three – but by the time he arrives in Nice (at the time part of Italy) he has calmed down and decides to stay put. While in Nice he composes the overture Le roi Lear, inspired by Shakespeare’s play of the same title, and starts work on the overture Rob Roy, and on Le retour a la vie (The Return to Life), later called Lelio; the music is largely based on previously written pieces. The premiere of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable at the Opera is an outstanding success (21 November).