In the long list of brilliant names which have illustrated the fine
arts, there is none attached to a personality more interesting and
impressive than that of Hector Berlioz. He stands solitary, a colossus
in music, with but few admirers and fewer followers. Original, puissant
in faculties, fiercely dogmatic and intolerant, bizarre, his influence
has impressed itself profoundly on the musical world both for good
and evil, but has failed to make disciples or to rear a school.
Notwithstanding the defects and extravagances of Berlioz, it is safe to
assert that no art or philosophy can boast of an example of more perfect
devotion to an ideal. The startling originality of Berlioz as a musician
rests on a mental and emotional organization different from and in some
respects superior to that of any other eminent master. He possessed an
ardent temperament; a gorgeous imagination, that knew no rest in its
working, and at times became heated to the verge of madness; a most
subtile sense of hearing; an intellect of the keenest analytic turn; a
most arrogant will, full of enterprise and daring, which clung to its
purpose with unrelenting tenacity; and passions of such heat and fervor
that they rarely failed when aroused to carry him beyond all bounds
of reason. His genius was unique, his character cast in the mold of a
Titan, his life a tragedy. Says Blaze de Bussy: "Art has its martyrs,
its forerunners crying in the wilderness, and feeding on roots. It has
also its spoiled children sated with bonbons and dainties." Berlioz
belongs to the former of these classes, and, if ever a prophet lifted up
his voice with a vehement and incessant outcry, it was he.
Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, at Côte Saint André,
a small town between Grenoble and Lyons. His father was an excellent
physician of more than ordinary attainments, and he superintended his
son's studies with great zeal in the hope that the lad would also become
an ornament of the healing profession. But young Hector, though an
excellent scholar in other branches, developed a special aptitude
for music, and at twelve he could sing at sight, and play difficult
concertos on the flute. The elder regarded music only as a graceful
ornament to life, and in no wise encouraged his son in thinking of music
as a profession. So it was not long before Hector found his attention
directed to anatomy, physiology, osteology, etc. In his father's library
he had already read of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, etc., and had found a
manuscript score of an opera which he had committed to memory. His
soul revolted more and more from the path cut out for him. "Become a
physician!" he cried, "study anatomy; dissect; take part in horrible
operations? No! no! That would be a total subversion of the natural
course of my life."
But parental resolution carried the day, and, after he had finished the
preliminary course of study, he was ordered up to Paris to join the army
of medical students. So at the age of nineteen we find him lodged in
the Quartier Latin. His first introduction to medical studies had been
unfortunate. On entering a dissecting-room he had been so convulsed with
horror as to leap from the window, and rush to his lodgings in an agony
of dread and disgust, whence he did not emerge for twenty-four hours.
At last, however, by dint of habit he became somewhat used to the
disagreeable facts of his new life, and, to use his own words, "bade
fair to add one more to the army of bad physicians," when he went to
the opera one night and heard "Les Danaïdes," Salieri's opera, performed
with all the splendid completeness of the Académie Royale. This awakened
into fresh life an unquenchable thirst for music, and he neglected his
medical studies for the library of the Conservatoire, where he learned
by heart the scores of Gluck and Rameau. At last, on coming out one
night from a performance of "Iphigénie," he swore that henceforth music
should have her divine rights of him, in spite of all and everything.
Henceforth hospital, dissecting-room, and professor's lectures knew him
no more.
But to get admission to the Conservatoire was now the problem; Berlioz
set to work on a cantata with orchestral accompaniments, and in the mean
time sent the most imploring letters home asking his father's sanction
for this change of life. The inexorable parent replied by cutting off
his son's allowance, saying that he would not help him to become one
of the miserable herd of unsuccessful musicians. The young enthusiast's
cantata gained him admission to the classes of Le Sueur and Reicha at
the Conservatoire, but alas! dire poverty stared him in the face. The
history of his shifts and privations for some months is a sad one. He
slept in an old, unfurnished garret, and shivered under insufficient
bedclothing, ate his bread and grapes on the Pont Neuf, and sometimes
debated whether a plunge into the Seine would not be the easiest way
out of it all. No mongrel cur in the capital but had a sweeter bone to
crunch than he. But the young fellow for all this stuck to his work with
dogged tenacity, managed to get a mass performed at St. Roch church, and
soon finished the score of an opera, "Les Francs Juges." Flesh and
blood would have given way at last under this hard diet, if he had
not obtained a position in the chorus of the Théâtre des Noveauteaus.
Berlioz gives an amusing account of his going to compete with the horde
of applicants--butchers, bakers, shop-apprentices, etc.--each one with
his roll of music under his arm.
The manager scanned the raw-boned starveling with a look of wonder.
"Where's your music?" quoth the tyrant of a third-class theatre. "I
don't want any, I can sing anything you can give me at sight," was the
answer. "The devil!" rejoined the manager; "but we haven't any music
here." "Well, what do you want?" said Berlioz. "I sing every note of all
the operas of Gluck, Piccini, Salieri, Rameau, Spontini, Grétry, Mozart,
and Cimarosa, from memory." At hearing this amazing declaration, the
rest of the competitors slunk away abashed, and Berlioz, after singing
an aria from Spontini, was accorded the place, which guaranteed him
fifty francs per month--a pittance, indeed, and yet a substantial
addition to his resources. This pot-boiling connection of Berlioz was
never known to the public till after he became a distinguished man,
though he was accustomed to speak in vague terms of his early dramatic
career as if it were a matter of romantic importance.
At last, however, he was relieved of the necessity of singing on the
stage to amuse the Paris _bourgeoisie_, and in a singular fashion. He
had been put to great straits to get his first work, which had won him
his way into the Conservatoire, performed. An application to the great
Chateaubriand, who was noted for benevolence, had failed, for the author
of "La Génie de Christianisme" was then almost as poor as Berlioz. At
last a young friend, De Pons, advanced him twelve hundred francs. Part
of this Berlioz had repaid, but the creditor, put to it for money, wrote
to Berlioz père, demanding a full settlement of the debt. The father was
thus brought again into communication with his son, whom he found nearly
sick unto death with a fever. His heart relented, and the old allowance
was resumed again, enabling the young musician to give his whole time to
his beloved art, instantly he convalesced from his illness.
The eccentric ways and heretical notions of Berlioz made him no favorite
with the dons of the Conservatoire, and by the irritable and autocratic
Cherubini he was positively hated. The young man took no pains to
placate this resentment, but on the other hand elaborated methods of
making himself doubly offensive. His power of stinging repartee stood
him in good stead, and he never put a button on his foil. Had it been in
old Cherubini's power to expel this bold pupil from the Conservatoire,
no scruple would have held him back. But the genius and industry of
Berlioz were undeniable, and there was no excuse for such extreme
measures. Prejudiced as were his judges, he successively took several
important prizes.