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Berlioz 200
Finally celebrating Hector’s birthday
BY DAVID WEININGER

The first edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes Hector Berlioz thus: "He stands alone — a colossus with few musical friends and no direct followers." That assessment — from 1879, 10 years after his death — remains eerily accurate. Berlioz may have gained a slew of friends in the intervening years, but he remains one of music history’s most singular figures. His was the most original and pathbreaking music of its time, but as recently as 50 years ago performances of some important works were rare occurrences. His influence is reckoned in some quarters to be on a par with Beethoven’s, yet no composer who followed him can be called his disciple. "A paradox in human form" was how Camille Saint-Saëns described him. And Colin Davis, held by some to be the greatest living Berlioz conductor, said in a recent interview: "He’s a one-off — you can’t imitate him."

This year is the 200th since his birth, and such "big-year" anniversaries seem to be the only appropriate time for us to reconsider a composer’s influence and standing. Although Boston has one of the world’s greatest "French" orchestras, the events have been slow in coming. (Consider that New York has already had a Berlioz festival of its own, with a visit from Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra.) That changes next weekend, when programs by the BSO and the Masterworks Chorale offer the city its first concentrated look back at a magnificent enfant terrible.

The BSO program pairs Berlioz’s best known work – the Symphonie fantastique — with one of his least known — Harold in Italy — under Emmanuel Krivine (substituting for an indisposed Charles Mackerras). That the Symphonie was Berlioz’s first major work is amazing; that it was written in 1830 is staggering. Had he written nothing else, Berlioz would have left an imposing mark on music history. The orchestration is stunningly original, a giant step forward even from his idol Beethoven. Here was the first music written for the orchestra as a virtuoso instrument, an immense sound-producing machine. And the story line — an artist’s passion for a young woman and his opium-induced vision of their encounter at a ball and in the country, himself on the scaffold after murdering her, and her at a riotous witches’ sabbath — blurred the line between absolute and programmatic music. No symphonic work had boasted such narrative power, but it quickly became one of the hallmarks of musical Romanticism.

Harold in Italy, a symphony with a prominent viola solo (which Steven Ansell will play at Symphony Hall), differs from the Symphonie in almost every respect. This "series of orchestral scenes" (as he called it) is probably Berlioz’s most relaxed orchestral work, a lyrical, stress-free reminiscence of his time in the Mediterranean in the 1830s. It is not a viola concerto: the solo part moves hand in glove with the orchestra rather than standing proudly in front of it. (This is surely why Paganini, who commissioned the work, never played it.) Berlioz’s œuvre contains no chamber music; Harold would be as close as he ever came to writing any.

L’enfance du Christ, which the Masterworks Chorale will perform under Allen Lannom, is probably the most neglected of Berlioz’s mature works. Although complete performances are rare, many music lovers will know the "Shepherds’ Farewell," a choral favorite often performed on its own. Berlioz, in fact, composed this tender hymn to the infant Jesus as a self-contained piece, and only its initial success persuaded him to expand on it. Mackerras has commented that "tenderness and simplicity pervade almost the entire work." Even if the famous chorus remains more popular than the completed piece, the embattled composer still got the last laugh. At the time, he pretended that the melody of the chorus had been written by a 17th-century French composer. The audience agreed: one listener was heard to remark that "Monsieur Berlioz could never write anything as charming as that."

The Boston Symphony Orchestra performs its Berlioz program October 28 and 30 and November 1 at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. Tickets are $26 to $95; call (617) 266-1200. The Masterworks Chorale performs L’enfance du Christ next Sunday, November 2, at 3 p.m. at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street in Harvard Square. Tickets are $16 to $36; call (617) 496-2222.


Issue Date: October 24 - 30, 2003
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