Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is
one of the most colorful characters in all of Western music—no small feat in a
room crowded with Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and
so many others who led noteworthy, and often scandalous, lives. Yet Berlioz holds his own with any of them
musically as well as biographically, as he was an eccentric in an age of
eccentrics. A virtually self-taught composer, Berlioz took the orchestra that
he inherited from Beethoven and launched it head first into the 21st
century. Yes, the 21st century, as his ideas were so radical that
only recently are we able to appreciate them, much less try to emulate them.
Among his many achievements are the still wildly Romantic Symphonie
Fantastique, a symphony with an autobiographical program inspired by an
opium dream (emulating Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, though sounding even more
like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner); a Requiem for such immense forces
that it seems like it would implode under its own weight; and the exotic
picture postcard symphony, Harold in Italie, which sort of follows the
narrative of Byron’s poem, but in reality follows Berlioz’s own adventures in
Italy.
However, even these
accomplishments pale beside what he intended to do with his music. His vision
simply could not be realized in the mid-19th century, with its
indifferent orchestras, conservative mindset, and lack of technology.
Re-reading his Memoirs, which is full of fantastic stories about his
life, adventures, and philosophy (some of it quite embellished, no doubt), I
came across this glorious passage about his ideal orchestra—the music of his
dreams. Imagine a bizarre Frenchman in the 1840’s dreaming up such a scheme and
presenting it to an impresario. He was dead serious about this, too; he fully
intended to mount such an orchestra, and actually came close in 1840, when he
conducted 450 players (which he fudged into 600 in his Memoirs) in a
concert that proved a colossal failure for him financially, but must have
impressed the hell out of many youngsters in the audience (and back then, the
average age of concertgoers was 30!).
So here is a draft of his orchestra of the future, which he felt would
realize his grandiose artistic plans:
120
Violins (in four devisions)
40
violas (with ten able to play the outdated viola d’amore)
45
cellos
18
double basses tuned G-D-A
15
double basses turned E-A-D-G
4
octobasses (!), an instrument invented in 1849, which were 13 feet high with 3
strings
6
flutes
4
E-flat flutes
2
piccolos
2
D-flat piccolos
6
oboes
6
English horns
5
saxophones
4
quint bassoons (smaller bassoons pitched a fifth higher)
12
bassooons
4
E-flat clarinets
8
clarinets
3
bass clarinets
16
French horns
8
trumpets
6
cornets
4
alto trumpets
4
alto trombones
6
tenor trombones
2
bass trombones
2
ophicleides (the obsolete instrument, like a tuba, that Mendelssohn also wrote
for in his Midsummer Night’s Dream overture)
2
bass tubas
30
harps
30
pianos
1
organ
8
timpani
6
small drums
3
large drums
16
cymbals
6
triangles
6
glockenspiels
2
large bells
2
tam-tams
4
half-moons (percussion instrument of Turkish derivation)
What a noise this orchestra
would make! Of course, Berlioz wasn’t interested solely in sound and volume; he
wanted nuance, and like a painter, desired the ability to capture the most
minute qualities of orchestration which escaped the resources of a conventional
orchestra. As he explains, he wanted the orchestra to capture “a hurricane in
the tropics or the explosive roar of a volcano. There would be the mysterious
rustle of primeval forests, the lamentations, the triumphant mournful song of
the soulful, loving and emotional nations. The silence would make one tremble
by its solemnity. The crescendo would cause even an unresponsive nature to
shiver. It would grow like an immense fire that eventually sets the whole sky
aflame.”
So this is all just a
reminder of how boring and anodyne classical music is! To get a sample of what Berlioz did
accomplish with the means available to him, here is a clip from the final
movement of the Symphonie Fantastique, when in a nightmare vision, the
hero’s beloved becomes a witch and leads a devil’s sabbath to bring him to the
gallows. (conducted
by Leonard Bernstein, something of a Berlioz himself on the conductor's
platform).
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