Owing to the unrelenting hostility of Cherubini, Berlioz failed to
secure a professorship at the Conservatoire, a place to which he was
nobly entitled, and was fain to take up with the position of librarian
instead. The paltry wage he eked out by journalistic writing, for the
most part as musical critic of the _Journal des Débats_, by occasional
concerts, revising proofs, in a word anything which a versatile and
desperate Bohemian could turn his hand to. In fact, for many years the
main subsistence of Berlioz was derived from feuilleton-writing and
the labours of a critic. His prose is so witty, brilliant, fresh, and
epigrammatic, that he would have been known to posterity as a clever
_littérateur_, had he not preferred to remain merely a great
musician. Dramatic, picturesque, and subtile, with an admirable sense
of art-form, he could have become a powerful dramatist, perhaps a
great novelist. But his soul, all whose aspirations set towards one
goal, revolted from the labours of literature, still more from the
daily grind of journalistic drudgery. In that remarkable book,
_Mémoires de Hector Berlioz_, he has made known his misery, and thus
recounts one of his experiences:--"I stood at the window gazing into
the gardens, at the heights of Montmartre, at the setting sun; reverie
bore me a thousand leagues from my accursed comic opera. And when, on
turning, my eyes fell upon the accursed title at the head of the
accursed sheet, blank still, and obstinately awaiting my word, despair
seized upon me. My guitar rested against the table; with a kick I
crushed its side. Two pistols on the mantel stared at me with great
round eyes. I regarded them for some time, then beat my forehead with
clinched hand. At last I wept furiously, like a school-boy unable to
do his theme. The bitter tears were a relief. I turned the pistols
towards the wall; I pitied my innocent guitar, and sought a few
chords, which were given without resentment. Just then my son of six
years knocked at the door [the little Louis whose death, years after,
was the last bitter drop in the composer's cup of life]; owing to my
ill-humour, I had unjustly scolded him that morning. 'Papa,' he cried,
'wilt thou be friends?' 'I _will_ be friends; come on, my boy;' and I
ran to open the door. I took him on my knee, and, with his blonde head
on my breast, we slept together.... Fifteen years since then, and my
torment still endures. Oh, to be always there!--scores to write,
orchestras to lead, rehearsals to direct. Let me stand all day with
_bâton_ in hand, training a chorus, singing their parts myself, and
beating the measure until I spit blood, and cramp seizes my arm; let
me carry desks, double basses, harps, remove platforms, nail planks
like a porter or a carpenter, and then spend the night in rectifying
the errors of engravers or copyists. I have done, do, and will do it.
That belongs to my musical life, and I bear it without thinking of
it, as the hunter bears the thousand fatigues of the chase. But to
scribble eternally for a livelihood----!"
It may be fancied that such a man as Berlioz did not spare the lash,
once he gripped the whip-handle, and, though no man was more generous
than he in recognising and encouraging genuine merit, there was none
more relentless in scourging incompetency, pretentious commonplace,
and the blind conservatism which rests all its faith in what has been.
Our composer made more than one powerful enemy by this recklessness in
telling the truth, where a more politic man would have gained friends
strong to help in time of need. But Berlioz was too bitter and
reckless, as well as too proud, to debate consequences.
In 1838 Berlioz completed his "Benvenuto Cellini," his only attempt at
opera since "Les Francs Juges," and, wonderful to say, managed to get
it done at the opera, though the director, Duponchel, laughed at him
as a lunatic, and the whole company already regarded the work as
damned in advance. The result was a most disastrous and _éclatant_
failure, and it would have crushed any man whose moral backbone was
not forged of thrice-tempered steel. With all these back-sets Hector
Berlioz was not without encouragement. The brilliant Franz Liszt, one
of the musical idols of the age, had bowed before him and called him
master, the great musical protagonist. Spontini, one of the most
successful composers of the time, held him in affectionate admiration,
and always bade him be of good cheer. Paganini, the greatest of
violinists, had hailed him as equal to Beethoven.
On the night of the failure of "Benvenuto Cellini," a strange-looking
man with dishevelled black hair and eyes of piercing brilliancy had
forced his way around into the green-room, and, seeking out Berlioz,
had fallen on his knees before him and kissed his hand passionately.
Then he threw his arms around him and hailed the astonished composer
as the master-spirit of the age in terms of glowing eulogium. The next
morning, while Berlioz was in bed, there was a tap at the door, and
Paganini's son, Achille, entered with a note, saying his father was
sick, or he would have come to pay his respects in person. On opening
the note Berlioz found a most complimentary letter, and a more
substantial evidence of admiration, a check on Baron Rothschild for
twenty thousand francs! Paganini also gave Berlioz a commission to
write a concerto for his Stradivarius viola, which resulted in a grand
symphony, "Harold en Italie," founded on Byron's "Childe Harold," but
still more an inspiration of his own Italian adventures, which had had
a strong flavour of personal if they lacked artistic interest.
The generous gift of Paganini raised Berlioz from the slough of
necessity so far that he could give his whole time to music. Instantly
he set about his "Romeo and Juliet" symphony, which will always remain
one of his masterpieces--a beautifully chiselled work, from the hands
of one inspired by gratitude, unfettered imagination, and the sense of
blessed repose. Our composer's first musical journey was an extensive
tour in Germany in 1841, of which he gives charming memorials in his
letters to Liszt, Heine, Ernst, and others. His reception was as
generous and sympathetic as it had been cold and scornful in France.
Everywhere he was honoured and praised as one of the great men of the
age. Mendelssohn exchanged _bâtons_ with him at Leipsic,
notwithstanding the former only half understood this stalwart
Berserker of music. Spohr called him one of the greatest artists
living, though his own direct antithesis, and Schumann wrote glowingly
in the _Neue Zeitschrift_--"For myself, Berlioz is as clear as the
blue sky above. I really think there is a new time in music coming."
Berlioz wrote joyfully to Heine--"I came to Germany as the men of
ancient Greece went to the oracle at Delphi, and the response has been
in the highest degree encouraging." But his Germanic laurels did him
no good in France. The Parisians would have none of him except as a
writer of _feuilletons_, who pleased them by the vigour with which he
handled the knout, and tickled the levity of the million, who laughed
while they saw the half-dozen or more victims flayed by merciless
satire. Berlioz wept tears of blood because he had to do such
executioner's work, but did it none the less vigorously for all that.
The composer made another musical journey in Austria and Hungary in
1844-45, where he was again received with the most enthusiastic praise
and pleasure. It was in Hungary, especially, that the warmth of his
audiences overran all bounds. One night, at Pesth, where he played the
"Rackoczy Indulé," an orchestral setting of the martial hymn of the
Magyar race, the people were worked into a positive frenzy, and they
would have flung themselves before him that he might walk over their
prostrate bodies. Vienna, Pesth, and Prague led the way, and the other
cities followed in the wake of an enthusiasm which has been accorded
to not many artists. The French heard these stories with amazement,
for they could not understand how this musical demigod could be the
same as he who was little better than a witty buffoon. During this
absence Berlioz wrote the greater portion of his "Damnation de Faust,"
and, as he had made some money, he obeyed the strong instinct which
always ruled him, the hope of winning the suffrages of his own
countrymen.
An eminent French critic claims that this great work, of which we
shall speak further on, contains that which Gounod's "Faust"
lacks--insight into the spiritual significance of Goethe's drama.
Berlioz exhausted all his resources in producing it at the Opéra
Comique in 1846, but again he was disappointed by its falling
still-born on the public interest. Berlioz was utterly ruined, and he
fled from France in the dead of winter as from a pestilence.
The genius of this great man was recognised in Holland, Russia,
Austria, and Germany, but among his own countrymen, for the most part,
his name was a laughing-stock and a bye-word. He offended the pedants
and the formalists by his daring originality, he had secured the hate
of rival musicians by the vigour and keenness of his criticisms.
Berlioz was in the very heat of the artistic controversy between the
classicists and romanticists, and was associated with Victor Hugo,
Alexandre Dumas, Delacroix, Liszt, Chopin, and others, in fighting
that acrimonious art-battle. While he did not stand formally with the
ranks, he yet secured a still more bitter portion of hostility from
their powerful opponents, for, to opposition in principle, Berlioz
united a caustic and vigorous mode of expression. His name was a
target for the wits. "A physician who plays on the guitar and fancies
himself a composer," was the scoff of malignant gossips. The journals
poured on him a flood of abuse without stint. French malignity is the
most venomous and unscrupulous in the world, and Berlioz was selected
as a choice victim for its most vigorous exercise, none the less
willingly that he had shown so much skill and zest in impaling the
victims of his own artistic and personal dislike.