Berlioz: Scenes from the Life and Work

Description

These twelve essays bring new breadth and depth to our knowledge of the life and work of the composer of the Symphonie fantastique. A distinguished international array of scholars here treat such matters as Berlioz's "aesthetics" and what it means to write about the meaning of his music; the political implications of his fiction and the affinities of his projects as composer and as critic; what the Germans thought of his work before his travels in Germany and what the English made of him when he visited their capital city; what he seems to have written immediately after encountering Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (a surprise), and where he profited from Beethoven in what later became Roméo et Juliette. The volume closes with two reflective essays on Berlioz's literary masterpiece, the Mémoires. Contributors: Lord Aberdare (Alastair Bruce), Jean-Pierre Bartoli, Jacques Barzun, Peter Bloom, David Cairns, Gunther Braam, Gérard Condé, Pepijn van Doesburg, Joël-Marie Fauquet, Frank Heidlberger, Hugh Macdonald, and Julian Rushton Peter Bloom (Smith College) is author of The Life of Berlioz (1998) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz (2000). Contents Acknowledgments Note to the Reader Abbreviations Berlioz in the Aftermath of the Bicentenary Part 1 Aesthetic Issues 1 The Music in the Music of Berlioz 2 “Artistic Religiosity”: Berlioz Between the Te Deum and L’Enfance du Christ Part 2 In Fiction and Fact 3 Euphonia and the Utopia of the Orchestra as Society 4 Berlioz and the Mezzo-Soprano Part 3 Criticizing and Criticized 5 Berlioz as Composer-Critic 6 “A Certain Hector Berlioz”: News in Germany about Berlioz in France Part 4 The “Dramatic Symphony” 7 Berlioz’s Lost Roméo et Juliette 8 Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Berlioz’s Scène d’amour Part 5 In Foreign Lands 9 Germany at First 10 England and Berlioz Part 6 An Artist’s Life 11 Berlioz Writing the Life of Berlioz 12 Berlioz: Autobiography, Biography Contributors Index