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Still more evident is the influence of
woman upon music in the case of
Hector Berlioz. Berlioz studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but his
sensational style did not win favour with the classical Cherubini, and
the young man was forced to work against many difficulties. He was even
forbidden at one time to compete for the Prix de Rome, and came
near
giving up his career in dejection.
On the Parisian stage was a beautiful
Irish actress, named Harriet
Smithson, who was performing the plays of Shakespeare. Berlioz at once
fell in love with her, but it was some time before his needy
circumstances allowed him to lay his suit before her. When he did so,
his passion found shape and expression in a great musical work,—the
Symphonic Fantastique.
This is a weird and sinister
composition, but very effective. It is in
five movements. The first represents a young man seeing his ideal and
falling in love with her, the object of
this sudden affection being
depicted by a tender theme on the violin. This theme pervades the
entire
work. In the second movement, which represents a ball, it signifies the
entrance of the fair one. The third movement is called "In the Fields,"
and contains a duet between the two lovers in the guise of a shepherd
and shepherdess. They are portrayed by an English horn and an oboe, the
result being one of the great instrumental dialogues that are sometimes
found in-works of the tone masters. An effective touch is the
introduction of a thunder-storm, after which the English horn begins a
plaintive note of inquiry, but meets with no reply. In the fourth
movement, the young man has slain his love in a fit of jealousy, and is
on his way to execution. Very powerful music expresses the fatal march,
interrupted every now and then by the surging footsteps of the crowd.
At
its close, the hero ascends the scaffold; amid a hush, the tender love
theme reappears, but is obliterated by a sudden crash of the full
orchestra, and all is still. Berlioz, however, does not let his hero
rest in the grave, but adds a fifth movement to show him in the
infernal
regions. Piccolo and other wild instruments depict the fury of the
demons, a parody on the Dies Iræ follows, and
even the tender
love-theme is not spared, but is turned into the most vulgar of waltzes.
This musical love-letter was understood,
and Miss Smithson afterward
married the great composer. But, unfortunately, the romance stopped at
this point, and they did not "live happily ever afterward." The actress
was forced by an accident to leave the stage permanently. She and her
husband did not agree well, and were continually at odds. Finally she
took to drink, and a separation soon followed. Berlioz married again,
his second wife being the singer, Mlle. Recio. He outlived her, and in
later life was taken care of by her mother.
The symphony, incidentally, was so
successful at its first performance
that a strange-looking man rushed to the platform, saluted the
composer,
and sent him a more substantial token in the shape of twenty thousand
francs. The stranger proved to be Paganini, but that famous violinist
was such a miser that the story has been doubted. It is said that he
acted in behalf of an unknown benefactor, but his enthusiasm at the
performance seems to disprove this, and the work possesses just the
dark
and sinister character that would appeal to Paganini.
Another composition inspired by the same
love episode is the "Romeo and
Juliette" Symphony. Berlioz tried to make
all his music tell a story,
and he believed in the theory that tones could be made to represent
ideas in a much greater degree than is usually supposed. The result is
shown in many characteristic passages in his works, an excellent
example
being the gentle and melancholy theme that typifies Childe Harold in
the
symphony of that name. But Berlioz carried his idea to extremes, and
fairly earned the half-reproach of Wagner, who said of him: "He ciphers
with notes." That Berlioz could write with more direct beauty is shown
by his practical joke at the expense of the critics; for he pretended
to
unearth an old piece by a certain Pierre Ducré, which they
praised
greatly in contrast with his own works, and after they had done their
worst, Berlioz proved that he himself was the mythical Ducré.
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