Bearing in mind, then, that the Berlioz whom we have hitherto been
discussing is mostly the youthful Berlioz--the writer of mad letters,
the actor of extravagant parts, the composer of the _Symphonie
fantastique_ (1829-1830), and _Lélio_ (1831-1832)--let us look for a
moment at his art as it was then, and afterwards trace it through its
later and more sober manifestations.
In trying to follow him historically we meet with this difficulty,
that it is impossible to say exactly when some of his conceptions
first saw the light. He was in the habit of using up an early piece of
material in a later work, especially if the early work was one that
had been tried and had failed. We know, as I have already said, that
the theme of the opening of the _Symphonie fantastique_ is taken from
a boyish composition. A phrase from another boyish work--a quintet--is
used again in the _Francs Juges_ overture. Parts of the early cantata
_La Mort d'Orphée_ become the _Chant d'amour_ and _La harpe éolienne_
in _Lélio_. The _Chœur d'ombres_ in _Lélio_ is a reproduction of an
aria in the scena _Cléopâtre_--one of his unsuccessful _Prix de Rome_
essays. Part of the _Messe solennelle_ (1824) goes into _Benvenuto
Cellini_ (1835-1837). The _Marche au supplice_ in the _Symphonie
fantastique_ is taken from his youthful opera _Les Francs Juges_.
The fantasia on _The Tempest_ goes into _Lélio_. I strongly suspect,
indeed, that more of his work dates from the first ten years of his
artistic life (1824-1834) than we have ever imagined. My theory is that
he was overflowing with ideas in his younger days, and that there was
a gradual failure of them in his latest years, owing to the terrible
physical tortures he endured, and the large quantities of morphia he
had to take to still his pangs. At first he turns out work after work
with great rapidity. Taking the larger ones alone, we have in 1826[10]
_La révolution grecque_, in 1827 or 1828 the _Waverley_ and _Francs
Juges_ overtures, in 1828-1829 the eight _Faust_ scenes, in 1829 the
_Irish Melodies_, in 1829-1830 the _Symphonie fantastique_, in 1830 the
_Sardanapalus_ and the _Tempête_, in 1831 the _Corsair_ and _Le Roi
Lear_ overtures, in 1831-1832 the _Rob Roy_ overture, _Le Cinq Mai_,
_Lélio_ and part of the _Tristia_, in 1832-1833 various songs, in 1834
the _Harold en Italie_, and the _Nuits d'Été_, in 1835-1837 _Benvenuto
Cellini_ and the _Messe des Morts_, in 1838 the _Roméo et Juliette_.
This is a good output for some twelve years of a busy and struggling
man's life, during the earlier part of which he was little more than an
apprentice in his art. Berlioz lived another thirty-one years, but in
that time did surprisingly little. Again keeping to the larger works,
we have in 1840 the _Symphonie funèbre et triomphale_, in 1843 the
_Carnaval romain_ overture, in 1844 the _Hymne à la France_, in 1846
the completion of _Faust_, in 1848 the remainder of the _Tristia_, in
1851 _La Menace des Francs_, in 1850-1854 the _Enfance du Christ_, in
1849-1854 the _Te Deum_, in 1855 _L'Impériale_, in 1860-1862 _Béatrice
et Benedict_, in 1856-1863 the double opera _La Prise de Troie_ and
_Les Troyens à Carthage_. Even allowing for the facts that in his
middle and later periods he spent a good deal of time in foreign tours
and in literary work, we shall still, I think, be forced to conclude
that his ideas flowed more slowly in his later days, while they were
certainly of an inferior quality at times. We must remember, too, that
some of his works were written long before their production, and that
there is sometimes reason to believe this to have been the case even
where we have no positive testimony on the point. The _idée fixe_ theme
of the _Symphonie fantastique_ first appeared in _Herminie_ (1828);
the "Harold" theme in the _Harold en Italie_ had already figured on
the _cor anglais_ in the _Rob Roy_ overture. It is probable that the
_Roméo et Juliette_ was not all written in 1838 as a consequence of
Paganini's gift, as every one was led to believe; Berlioz had the
idea of the work in 1829, and perhaps conceived some of the music
then.[11] The _Symphonie funèbre et triomphale_, produced in 1840, was
to a great extent written in 1835. The stirring phrases that are the
life and soul of the _Carnaval romain_ overture (1843) are taken from
_Benvenuto Cellini_ (1835-1837); while the theme of the love-episode
in the overture had already appeared in _Cléopâtre_ (1829). It is,
indeed, impossible to say how much of the music of what I have called
Berlioz's second epoch really dates from his first, thus still further
diminishing the quantity belonging to the years after 1838. I think, if
the truth were known, it would be found that one or two of the themes
of _Béatrice et Benedict_, ostensibly written between 1860 and 1862,
belong to 1828, when Berlioz first resolved to make an opera out of
Shakespeare's play. It is incontestable that the ten years from 1828
to 1838 were years of inexhaustible musical inspiration. At times, he
himself has told us, he thought his head would have burst under the
peremptory pressure of his ideas; so rapidly did they flow, indeed,
that he had to invent a kind of musical shorthand to help his pen to
keep pace with them. There was, I take it, very little of this in the
last two or three decades of his life. Make what allowances we will
for other demands upon his time, it seems undeniable that his brain
then worked less eagerly and less easily in musical things. Had the
ideas been there in full vigour they would have come out in spite of
all other occupations; and that they were not there as they were in his
youth can only be explained, I think, on physiological grounds.[12]
The latter aspect of the case, however, will be dealt with more fully
later on. Here we may just note that Berlioz's early life was in
every way calculated to produce both the inflation of the prose style
that we see in his letters and the eccentricity and exaggeration that
we see in some of his early music. His friend Daniel Bertrand tells
us that "in his youth he sometimes amused himself by deliberately
starving, in order to know what evils genius could surmount; later on
his stomach had to pay for these expensive fantasies." At the time of
his infatuation with Henrietta Smithson, he used to play the maddest
pranks with his already over-excited brain and body; he would take long
night-walks without food, and sink into the sleep of utter exhaustion
in the fields. His body, like his brain, could not be kept at rest;
he had a mania for tramping and climbing that invariably carried him
far beyond his powers of endurance.[13] In 1830 the veteran Rouget
de l'Isle, without having seen the youthful musician, diagnosed him
excellently from his correspondence--"Your head," he wrote, "seems to
be a volcano perpetually in eruption." We may smile at his antics all
through this epoch, especially in _l'affaire Smithson_. But though
there may have been a little conscious pose in it all, it is
unquestionable that in the bulk of it he was in deadly earnest. Twice
he tried to commit suicide--once at Genoa, and again in the presence
of Henrietta. Nor were they merely stage performances, mere efforts at
effect; it was not his fault that they did not turn out successfully.