Berlioz's happiest evenings were at the Grand Opéra, 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,
among 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 afterward. 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 recognized 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 somber
meditations, the heart-rackings, the madness, tears, mourning, the
calamities and sharp cleverness of _Hamlet_; after the gray 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 marvelous 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 colorless
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 toward
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 labor 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 honor 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.