BERLIOZ, bilr'16-6s', HECTOR (1803-69). A French composer. lie was born at La Clite December lt, 1803. His father, a physician, sent him to Paris to study medicine; but he entered the Conservatoire, which he soon left, finding the teaching too pedantic. He gave himself up heart and soul to the romantic mo•e ment, and became the champion of 'programme 13111Si&—Wil iC11 endeavors to tell a story in music. Of his earlier attempts in this line, the Sympho nic fantastique, episode de la. vie (Pan artiste (1828), a page of musical autobiography, is the most remarkable. Coveting the Prix de Rome, he resumed study in the Conservatoire under Le suenr (q.v.), and gained the prize with the can tata Sardanapale (1330). Life in Italy fur nished inspiration for a new unfolding of his gifts, and lie wrote the overture to King Lear. He now took up journalistic work in the Corre spondant, then in the Courrier de ['Europe, in the Write E-uropecnnc, and finally in the Gazette musicale de Paris and the Journal des Debats. His brilliant and powerful style, iconoclastic ten dencies, and unswerving honesty and candor. made him the principal figure in French musical life. Though made conservator in 1839, and librarian in 1852, lie never became professor at the Conservatory. His symphony, Harold en Italie (1834), his Mess(' des marts (1837), his Carnaral romain (overture), and the dramatic symphony, Romeo et Juliette (1839),•all elicited high praise from the critics; but his first opera in two acts, Benrenuto Ccilini (1838), was a fail lire. Early in the forties. encouraged by Liszt's propagation of his music, Berlioz undertook a tour of Germany, which was so successful that for some ten years he traveled through Austria, Hungary. Bohemia, Russia, and England, every where meeting with enthusiastic receptions. In Hungary, the "Paikoczy March," from his Dam nation. de Faust (1846), is said to have aroused the people to a patriotic frenzy. In London be conducted the New Philharmonic Concerts, and in 1853 his own Benrenuto Cellini at Cov ent Garden. lie was elected to the Academy in 1856. His. masterpiece, Les Troyens, consist
ing of La Prise de Troie (three acts) and Les Troycns a (five acts), proved a fail ure (Paris, 1863), which broke down the com poser, and was feeble throughout the rest of his life. Tn 1890 Lcs Troyens was produced in Karlsruhe, in 1899 in Moscow. and in 1900 in Paris, with signal success. His writings on mu sical matters and the art of music are among the most treasured works in this line. llis Trait( d'instrumentation was the theoretical exposition of his views on instrumentation, which he ap plied in practice, and until the last years of the century was the best. work of its kind. In France he was appreciated more fully for his literary compositions, which moulded musical tastes and (-rented a field for the great masters of music. Only after his death his compatriots came to think that lie had not received his due honor, and they tried to make amends, which brought upon them the accusation of desiring to form a Berlioz cult. Berlioz lacked one essen tial—melodic invention—and all his ingenuity and art could not conceal the poverty of his musical ideas. But he was a great master in all else. llis grandiose fancy conceived images that are often sublime. lie possessed an accu rate knowledge of the possibilities of every in strument, which enabled him to produce new and wonderful combinations, enchanting, dazzling, weird, bizarre. or elf-like (as e.g. the "Queen Slab Scherzo" in llmm'o et Juliette, or in the Danse des Sylphes), and he is now the acknowledged father of modern orchestration. Without Ber lioz, Wagner would have been an impossibility, although Berlioz turned away from Wagner. He in Paris, Mandl 8, 1869. Ins collected writ ings appeared in German translation, by It. Pohl, in 4 vols. ( Mt). Consult: Julien, H. Berlioz (Paris, 1888), very good: Hippeau, Berlioz, Phomme et l'artiste (Paris, 1883-85) and Berlioz el son temps (Paris, 1892); Pohl, II, Berlioz: Studien and Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1884) ; and the autobiography, Memoires (Paris, 1870; Eng li.sh translation, Rachel and Eleanor Holmes, London, 1884).