Berlioz's happiest evenings were at the Grand Opera, for which he
prepared himself by solemn meditation. At the head of a band of
students and amateurs, he took on himself the right of the most
outspoken criticism, and led the enthusiasm or the condemnation of the
audience. At this time Beethoven was barely tolerated in Paris, and
the great symphonist was ruthlessly clipped and shorn to suit the
French taste, which pronounced him "bizarre, incoherent, diffuse,
bustling with rough modulations and wild harmonies, destitute of
melody, forced in expression, noisy, and fearfully difficult," even as
England at the same time frowned down his immortal works as
"obstreperous roarings of modern frenzy." Berlioz's clear, stern
voice would often be heard, when liberties were taken with the score,
loud above the din of the instruments. "What wretch has dared to
tamper with the great Beethoven?" "Who has taken upon him to revise
Gluck?" This self-appointed arbiter became the dread of the operatic
management, for, as a pupil of the Conservatoire, he had some rights
which could not be infringed.
Berlioz composed some remarkable works while at the Conservatoire,
amongst which were the "Ouverture des Francs Juges," and the
"Symphonie Fantastique," and in many ways indicated that the bent of
his genius had fully declared itself. His decided and indomitable
nature disdained to wear a mask, and he never sugar-coated his
opinion, however unpalatable to others. He was already in a state of
fierce revolt against the conventional forms of the music of his day,
and no trumpet-tones of protest were too loud for him. He had now
begun to write for the journals, though oftentimes his articles were
refused on account of their fierce assaults. "Your hands are too full
of stones, and there are too many glass windows about," was the excuse
of one editor, softening the return of a manuscript. But Berlioz did
not fully know himself or appreciate the tendencies fermenting within
him until in 1830 he became the victim of a grand Shakespearean
passion. The great English dramatist wrought most powerfully on Victor
Hugo and Hector Berlioz, and had much to do with their artistic
development. Berlioz gives a very interesting account of his
Shakespearean enthusiasm, which also involved one of the catastrophes
of his own personal life. "An English company gave some plays of
Shakespeare, at that time wholly unknown to the French public. I went
to the first performance of 'Hamlet' at the Odéon. I saw, in the part
of Ophelia, Harriet Smithson, who became my wife five years
afterwards. The effect of her prodigious talent, or rather of her
dramatic genius, upon my heart and imagination, is only comparable to
the complete overturning which the poet, whose worthy interpreter she
was, caused in me. Shakespeare, thus coming on me suddenly, struck me
as with a thunderbolt. His lightning opened the heaven of art to me
with a sublime crash, and lighted up its farthest depths. I recognised
true dramatic grandeur, beauty, and truth. I measured at the same time
the boundless inanity of the notions of Shakespeare in France, spread
abroad by Voltaire.
'... ce singe de génie,
Chez l'homme en mission par le diable envoyé--'
('that ape of genius, an emissary from the devil to man'), and the
pitiful poverty of our old poetry of pedagogues and ragged-school
teachers. I saw, I understood, I felt that I was alive and must arise
and walk." Of the influence of "Romeo and Juliet" on him, he says,
"Exposing myself to the burning sun and balmy nights of Italy, seeing
this love as quick and sudden as thought, burning like lava,
imperious, irresistible, boundless, and pure and beautiful as the
smile of angels, those furious scenes of vengeance, those distracted
embraces, those struggles between love and death, was too much. After
the melancholy, the gnawing anguish, the tearful love, the cruel
irony, the sombre meditations, the heart-rackings, the madness, tears,
mourning, the calamities and sharp cleverness of Hamlet; after the
grey clouds and icy winds of Denmark; after the third act, hardly
breathing, in pain as if a hand of iron were squeezing at my heart, I
said to myself with the fullest conviction, 'Ah! I am lost.' I must
add that I did not at that time know a word of English, that I only
caught glimpses of Shakespeare through the fog of Letourneur's
translation, and that I consequently could not perceive the poetic web
that surrounds his marvellous creations like a net of gold. I have the
misfortune to be very nearly in the same sad case to-day. It is much
harder for a Frenchman to sound the depths of Shakespeare than for an
Englishman to feel the delicacy and originality of La Fontaine or
Molière. Our two poets are rich continents; Shakespeare is a world.
But the play of the actors, above all of the actress, the succession
of the scenes, the pantomime and the accent of the voices, meant more
to me, and filled me a thousand times more with Shakespearean ideas
and passion than the text of my colourless and unfaithful translation.
An English critic said last winter in the _Illustrated London News_,
that, after seeing Miss Smithson in Juliet, I had cried out, 'I will
marry that woman and write my grandest symphony on this play.' I did
both, but never said anything of the sort."
The beautiful Miss Smithson became the rage, the inspiration of poets
and painters, the idol of the hour, at whose feet knelt all the
_roués_ and rich idlers of the town. Delacroix painted her as the
Ophelia of his celebrated picture, and the English company made nearly
as much sensation in Paris as the Comédie Française recently aroused
in London. Berlioz's mind, perturbed and inflamed with the mighty
images of the Shakespearean world, swept with wide, powerful passion
towards Shakespeare's interpreter. He raged and stormed with his
accustomed vehemence, made no secret of his infatuation, and walked
the streets at night, calling aloud the name of the enchantress, and
cooling his heated brows with many a sigh. He, too, would prove that
he was a great artist, and his idol should know that she had no
unworthy lover. He would give a concert, and Miss Smithson should be
present by hook or by crook. He went to Cherubini and asked permission
to use the great hall of the Conservatoire, but was churlishly
refused. Berlioz, however, managed to secure the concession over the
head of Cherubini, and advertised his concert. He went to large
expense in copyists, orchestra, solo-singers, and chorus, and, when
the night came, was almost fevered with expectation. But the concert
was a failure, and the adored one was not there; she had not even
heard of it! The disappointment nearly laid the young composer on a
bed of sickness; but, if he oscillated between deliriums of hope and
despair, his powerful will was also full of elasticity, and not for
long did he even rave in the utter ebb of disappointment. Throughout
the whole of his life, Berlioz displayed this swiftness of recoil;
one moment crazed with grief and depression, the next he would bend to
his labour with a cool, steady fixedness of purpose, which would sweep
all interferences aside like cobwebs. But still, night after night, he
would haunt the Odéon, and drink in the sights and sounds of the magic
world of Shakespeare, getting fresh inspiration nightly for his genius
and love. If he paid dearly for this rich intellectual acquaintance by
his passion for La Belle Smithson, he yet gained impulses and
suggestions for his imagination, ravenous of new impressions, which
wrought deeply and permanently. Had Berlioz known the outcome, he
would not have bartered for immunity by losing the jewels and ingots
of the Shakespeare treasure-house.
The year 1830 was for Berlioz one of alternate exaltation and misery;
of struggle, privation, disappointment; of all manner of torments
inseparable from such a volcanic temperament and restless brain. But
he had one consolation which gratified his vanity. He gained the Prix
de Rome by his cantata of "Sardanapalus." This honour had a practical
value also. It secured him an annuity of three thousand francs for a
period of five years, and two years' residence in Italy. Berlioz would
never let "well enough" alone, however. He insisted on adding an
orchestral part to the completed score, describing the grand
conflagration of the palace of Sardanapalus. When the work was
produced, it was received with a howl of sarcastic derision, owing to
the latest whim of the composer. So Berlioz started for Italy,
smarting with rage and pain, as if the Furies were lashing him with
their scorpion whips.