Hector Berlioz

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2WrLyAA8cU76qa53vRPdYX?si=f8b4ca4c16674470
🎧 Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/DcJMp8cWimicQ5MJ7
00:00 1. [Symphonie fantastique, op. 14] Rêveries, passions
09:09 2. [Symphonie fantastique, op. 14] Un bal
14:19 3. [Symphonie fantastique, op. 14] Scène aux champs
24:24 4. [Symphonie fantastique, op. 14] Marche au supplice
29:23 5. [Symphonie fantastique, op. 14] Songe d'une nuit de sabbat
44:51 6. Marche hongroise (extrait de la Damnation de Faust)
50:49 7. [Carnaval Romain] Ouverture

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
For someone who was not formally trained in music, Hector Berlioz has had an enormous influence on its development and some of his pieces seem revolutionary in comparison with other composers of the period. Perhaps it was this unusual musical training that gave him the freedom to express himself in an eccentric way, and his romantic nature gave him plenty of inner turmoil to express. As a boy in the Grenoble region, he learned to play the flute and the guitar, but despite his interest in music, his father insisted that he study Medicine in Paris. Although Medicine was not to prove his forte, in Paris the young Berlioz had access to a range of musical activities and resources. He went to the Paris Opera and discovered the library of the Paris Conservatory, where he studied books on musical topics such as Harmony even though he was not enrolled as a formal student.
He came across the music of Beethoven and he studied the scores of Gluck's operas after being impressed with their staging at the opera house. He started taking music lessons and with some encouragement from his tutors he finally gave up his medical studies (and his father's financial support) to attend the Conservatory as a composition student in 1826 at the age of 23. Thereafter his development seemed to be meteoric and only 4 years later in 1830, he composed his Symphonie Fantastique, a work that shook the musical world of the time. This was only 6 years after the publication of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and 3 years after Beethoven's death, yet the Symphonie Fantastique seems years ahead of its time in comparison.
That same year Berlioz also won the Prix de Rome after several unsuccessful attempts and, as required by the prize, he left for Italy in 1831 for 2 years of further study. He stayed in Rome but visited other cities and regions and the country was later to influence his "Harold in Italy", a work for viola and orchestra commissioned by Paganini. At first, Paganini seemed lukewarm about the work and it was premiered without the great violinist, but Paganini later played the work and gave Berlioz the sum of 20,000 francs. The composer used this to pay off his debts and fund his subsequent career, though he was still to subsidize the income from his compositions with other jobs as a music critic and as deputy librarian (and later head librarian) at the same Paris Conservatory where he had previously studied.
Berlioz found his career as a composer stagnating to some extent in France, and he embarked on concert tours as a conductor visiting many countries in Europe and Russia. Since he did not play the piano Berlioz was denied one of the sources of income that other composers relied on, but his conducting tours helped to bring him a reasonable income. One of his conducting tours included a Festival of his music at Weimar organized by Liszt. Indeed Berlioz seemed to find greater favor with Austrian and German composers than with those in his native France. He also wrote two influential books, one on conducting and one on orchestration, as well as his own memoirs whose publication shortly after his death gave an insight into what drove the composer. Berlioz died in 1869 in Paris. Though his career may not have totally fulfilled its earlier promise, he nevertheless had influenced many composers of the Romantic period (e.g. Liszt and Wagner) with his fresh ideas, his approach to orchestration, and his skills as a conductor.
from mfiles.co.uk

Видео Hector Berlioz канала Classical Escapades