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 labors of a critic. His prose is so witty, brilliant, fresh, and
epigrammatic that he would have been known to posterity as a clever
_litterateur_, 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 toward one goal, revolted from the
labors 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 schoolboy unable to do his theme. The bitter tears
were a relief. I turned the pistols toward 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-humor, 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 griped the whip-handle, and, though no man was more generous
than he in recognizing 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 disheveled 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 flavor
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 chiseled 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 honored 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 vigor 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 stillborn 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 recognized in Holland, Russia, Austria,
and Germany, but among his own countrymen, for the most part, his name
was a laughing-stock and a by-word. He offended the pedants and the
formalists by his daring originality, he had secured the hate of rival
musicians by the vigor 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.