Reproduced from a Russian photograph, selected by von Bulow as being
the best likeness of Berlioz in his later years.
]
Just a year later the conversion of the public to Berlioz music was
accomplished by means of a grand festival at the _Opéra_ in honor of the
master, organized by his disciple Ernest Reyer. Even up to this time it
was possible to hear Berlioz’s music only at the Popular Concerts, and
then often in the midst of confusion and protestations. The announcement
of this concert gave rise to many pleasantries, and people agreed, with
nods and chuckles, that the best way to pay honor to such a man was to
play music as unlike his as possible. However, the festival took place
on the day appointed, with a program made up entirely of the master’s
works, and some of the pieces, such as the _Waltz of the Sylphs_, and
the _Hungarian March_, caused the liveliest surprise. They had come to
laugh and they listened; they even applauded, and better than with the
tips of their fingers. This was the signal for a reaction, and from that
day the sudden change of opinion was only intensified as the musical
public, who had hitherto tolerated only a few selections, familiarized
themselves with the superb creations of this master and insisted on
hearing successively all his complete works.
His wonderful _La Damnation de Faust_ in particular, so little
appreciated at first, finally had an amazing success and an irresistible
attraction for the crowd, perhaps because the result was assisted by two
or three concert performances. But there is nothing half-way about a
French audience, it has no lukewarm sentiments, and it praises as
immoderately as it condemns. Having once taken the stand, it accepted
and applauded everything from Berlioz’s pen, and when it had exhausted
mere bravos, it easily persuaded itself to erect a monument to his
memory. First it was a question of a simple bust to be placed upon his
tomb in Montmartre Cemetery, then it was proposed to erect a statue to
him in his native city; but Paris did not wish to do less than
Côte-Saint-André, and so it happened that Alfred Lénoir’s statue of the
composer was erected in Vintimille square near the rue de Calais, the
quarter where he spent a long period of his life and where he died. An
exact duplicate of the statue was erected at Côte-Saint-André in 1890,
and surely two statues are not too many to honor the great artist of
whom Auber said with a little spice of wickedness,—“Yes, this Berlioz is
certainly worth something, but what a pity that his education began so
late.”
To-day Berlioz is at the topmost height of fame, and this renown he has
achieved by one work. To the whole musical world he is the composer of
_La Damnation de Faust_, and neither _Romeo et Juliette_, nor _L’Enfance
du Christ_, nor the _Requiem_, each a masterpiece in its way, has
obtained the widespread success of the first-named work. It is singular
that a purely orchestral composition, _La Symphony Fantastique_, should
be accorded a second rank in the general judgment. Strictly speaking,
this symphony and _La Damnation_ present, outside the music written by
him for the stage, the quintessence of Berlioz’s genius. They are the
two poles between which his affluent inspiration oscillates. In the
former of these scores is to be found all the romantic exuberance of
youth; the fury of a latent rebellion against discipline and yet wholly
master of itself; a dazzling wealth of instrumentation; a poetic and
delightful coloring. In the other, of which the style is more varied,
burst forth a passion, an irony, a burning heat, a prodigious intuition
of the effects of vast numbers, a fantastic raillery, a power of
dramatic expression without equal. It is none the less true that genius
radiates from many pages of his other works: the _Pilgrim’s March_ in
_Harold_: the _Offertory_ and the _Tuba Mirum_ in the _Requiem_; the
_Repose of the Holy Family_ in _L’Enfance du Christ_; the _Night of the
Ball_, and the _Love Scene_ from _Roméo et Juliette_; the nocturne-duet
from _Béatrice et Bénédict_; the love-duet, the quintet and the septet
in _Les Troyens_ are all bright inspirations among creations of the
highest worth, that met with great favor, although the works of which
they are a part had not the power to win the masses as they were won by
_La Symphonie Fantastique_ and _La Damnation de Faust_. These last
gratify the public taste (using the term in its broadest acceptation)
because they are not merely concert music, but have a close affinity
with the stage, in the dramatic stories they illustrate. I believe that
the minute descriptive programme which Berlioz has attached to _La
Symphonie Fantastique_ has been largely instrumental in assuring the
success of this work with a public that mentally follows the imaginary
drama, step by step as the orchestra depicts the various episodes; now
melodramatic, now rustic, now loving, sanguinary and demoniac. Such is
still more the case with _La Damnation de Faust_. Berlioz’s work has
certainly benefited by the attention drawn to Goethe’s poem by M.
Gounod’s opera; the great mass of the public knew nothing of the
original when _La Damnation_ was first heard by them in 1846. Nowadays
music lovers everywhere are equally well informed on this point; they
understood, from the time that the opera was given, the meaning of what
was recited to them by Berlioz’s singers, clad in black dress suits and
white neckties; they filled in the gaps in his libretto from what the
opera of Faust taught them; they compared number with number; in fact,
by reason of placing side by side two works so widely unlike each other,
they learned to appreciate the warm, passionate and magnificent power of
Berlioz’s older composition. Thus little by little this product of
genius has forced itself on general admiration as the model on which
Gounod’s Faust was planned.
It is no exaggeration to proclaim _La Damnation de Faust_ a work of
genius, and it excites all the more admiration when we know that certain
numbers, among others, the scene in which Faust is lulled to sleep by
elfins, came from the brain of a composer only twenty-five years old,
and appeared almost perfect in the _Huit scènes de Faust_ which Berlioz
published in 1829, not being able to have it performed, and which he
dedicated to M. de Larochefoucauld. This fine scene, therefore, dates
back to 1828, as does the beautiful song _La Fête de Pâques_ and also
the joyous rondo sung by the peasants. In fact, not only the grand
choruses, but the shorter pieces, the songs of _Le Rat_ and of _La
Puce_; the ballad, _Le Roi de Thule_; the romance of Marguerite, joined
arbitrarily to the soldiers’ chorus and _La Sérenade du diable_ are all
fragments of his youthful work that Berlioz retained in the score of his
maturer period and had the skill to combine anew in several scenes of
extraordinary poetic beauty and richness of effect. How inspired the
pretty rustic scene into which he has inserted, judiciously or
otherwise, his admirable _Rakoczy March_, written to gain the good will
of the Hungarians; the superb monologue of the doctor, introducing the
Easter chorus; the animated scene at the Auerbach tavern with its
bizarre songs and the ironical fugue on the word _Amen_; the marvellous
scene on the banks of the Elbe with the fine appeal to the demon; the
delightful slumber chorus of the spirits and the exquisite ballet of the
sylphs; the double chorus of students. Does it not seem that they were
all conceived, composed and written down at a white heat and without a
pause between them? How fascinating and impressive appears the really
devilish serenade of Mephisto, the charming _Ménuet des Follets_ after
the ecstatic air of Faust, the archaic ballad of Marguerite, the
extremely tender love-duet, and the grand final trio with its chorus of
neighbors. The last part is, from beginning to end, absolutely above
criticism. It opens with Marguerite’s sad lament interrupted by the
chorus of students and leads up to the sublime invocation of nature; to
the fantastic path of the abyss; to the lovely song of Seraphim after
the furious suggestions of hell. What a splendid culmination!
Surely _La Damnation de Faust_ is a masterpiece; but _Roméo et Juliette_
is another and should have enjoyed as great a success. That it did not
is perhaps owing to the fact that in Berlioz’s symphony, vocal music has
only a small place, the instruments alone translating the sentiments of
the characters, the two not being in juxtaposition as they are in many
of the familiar operas of _Romeo and Juliet_ by Gounod and others which
ought to have led to an appreciation of Berlioz’s score. The seven
movements that form this composition are all of marked worth and are
appropriate to the strange plan of the work. In the first place, the
prologue, imitated from Shakespeare, and of which M. Gounod, later,
adopted Berlioz’s idea, presents a résumé of the work at once complete,
grand and delightful, and comprises the fine verses that Berlioz,
strangely enough, caused to be sung by a Muse in honor of Shakespeare
and Poetry. The opening part includes three incomparable numbers: the
poetic and piquantly agitated revery of Romeo wandering in the garden
during the ball; the love scene between Juliet and Romeo, a masterpiece
of orchestration; the Queen Mab movement, a model of fantastic airiness;
also three numbers in the second part, the funeral of Juliet, with its
penetrating sadness; the death of Romeo, in which Berlioz has given free
rein to his passion for descriptive music, and the oath of
reconciliation, preceded by a stirring recitative and the noble prayer
of the monk. These are so many magnificent fragments, which, placed side
by side according to the composer’s design, form a creation of a wholly
superior order.
[Illustration: