Program Notes Hector Berlioz March from Les Troyens In the spring of 1854, Hector Berlioz paid a visit to fellow composer Franz Liszt in Weimar. Berlioz was already famous -- or infamous -- for creating works of intense romanticism and huge scope such as Symphonie fantastique (1830), the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839), and his Requiem (1838), which required an orchestra of 190, a chorus of 200, plus extra brass and percussion. At Weimar, Liszt"s mistress, Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein, suggested that with such a background, Berlioz was ready to write a "vast" operatic work. Berlioz took up the challenge in 1856 and began writing a libretto based on Virgil's Aeneid. The opera, Les Troyens (The Trojans), tells of the sack of Troy and of the Trojan hero Aeneas who, while leading a band of survivors to Italy to found a new city (Rome), falls in love with Dido, the queen of Carthage. In his later memoirs, Berlioz explained that he chose Virgil’s poem because it "first found the way to my heart and opened my budding imagination, by speaking to me of epic passions." For his unquestionably epic version of the story, Berlioz composed a grand and demanding score, completing it in April of 1858. His five-act opera required two strong singing actresses, a tenor who could rise to C above the staff, and a virtuosic chorus -- 128 singers in all -- as well as 61 dancers, various acrobats, an orchestra of 80 and three offstage bands. The entire spectacle, with 33 scene changes, would take over four hours to perform. Obviously, producing the complete opera was a costly and difficult proposition, and so the work was never performed in its entirety during Berlioz's lifetime. Instead, the Théâtre Lyrique of Paris premiered the last three acts in November of 1863 under the title Les Troyens à Carthage. The cast was stellar and the press enthusiastic, but the abbreviated version, further cut after its first performances, disappointed and discouraged Berlioz. Composer Charles Gounod believed that it was this disappointment that led to the illness that Berlioz suffered in the mid 1860s, and to his eventual death. "[Les Troyens] finished him," Gounod wrote; “like his namesake, Hector, he died beneath the walls of Troy." A year after his opera's abbreviated premiere, Berlioz arranged a concert version of a march for the Trojan soldiers. The first half of the arrangement is based on a march at the end of the first act, an energetic melody that was originally meant to be augmented by a chorus and a troupe of acrobats. The final segment is an adaptation of a portion of the final act, when Aeneas departs from Carthage. Even without the spectacle, Berlioz's brassy and bombastic music is stirring. February 22, 2004 --Barbara Heninger
Program Notes
In the spring of 1854, Hector Berlioz paid a visit to fellow composer Franz Liszt in Weimar. Berlioz was already famous -- or infamous -- for creating works of intense romanticism and huge scope such as Symphonie fantastique (1830), the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839), and his Requiem (1838), which required an orchestra of 190, a chorus of 200, plus extra brass and percussion. At Weimar, Liszt"s mistress, Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein, suggested that with such a background, Berlioz was ready to write a "vast" operatic work.
Berlioz took up the challenge in 1856 and began writing a libretto based on Virgil's Aeneid. The opera, Les Troyens (The Trojans), tells of the sack of Troy and of the Trojan hero Aeneas who, while leading a band of survivors to Italy to found a new city (Rome), falls in love with Dido, the queen of Carthage. In his later memoirs, Berlioz explained that he chose Virgil’s poem because it "first found the way to my heart and opened my budding imagination, by speaking to me of epic passions." For his unquestionably epic version of the story, Berlioz composed a grand and demanding score, completing it in April of 1858. His five-act opera required two strong singing actresses, a tenor who could rise to C above the staff, and a virtuosic chorus -- 128 singers in all -- as well as 61 dancers, various acrobats, an orchestra of 80 and three offstage bands. The entire spectacle, with 33 scene changes, would take over four hours to perform.
Obviously, producing the complete opera was a costly and difficult proposition, and so the work was never performed in its entirety during Berlioz's lifetime. Instead, the Théâtre Lyrique of Paris premiered the last three acts in November of 1863 under the title Les Troyens à Carthage. The cast was stellar and the press enthusiastic, but the abbreviated version, further cut after its first performances, disappointed and discouraged Berlioz. Composer Charles Gounod believed that it was this disappointment that led to the illness that Berlioz suffered in the mid 1860s, and to his eventual death. "[Les Troyens] finished him," Gounod wrote; “like his namesake, Hector, he died beneath the walls of Troy."
A year after his opera's abbreviated premiere, Berlioz arranged a concert version of a march for the Trojan soldiers. The first half of the arrangement is based on a march at the end of the first act, an energetic melody that was originally meant to be augmented by a chorus and a troupe of acrobats. The final segment is an adaptation of a portion of the final act, when Aeneas departs from Carthage. Even without the spectacle, Berlioz's brassy and bombastic music is stirring.
February 22, 2004
--Barbara Heninger
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