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    The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art
    The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art
    The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art
    Ebook51 pages37 minutes

    The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art

    By Hector Berlioz

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    About this ebook

    The following book is a unique look into what conducting an orchestra is like from the perspective of a composer and conductor of the French Romantic era, Hector Berlioz. Though he only met occasional success in France as a composer, Berlioz was highly regarded in Germany, Britain, and Russia both as a composer and as a conductor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateApr 25, 2021
    ISBN4064066103668
    The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art
    Author

    Hector Berlioz

    Hector Berlioz est un compositeur, chef d'orchestre, critique musical et écrivain français, né le 11 décembre 1803 à La Côte-Saint-André (Isère) et mort le 8 mars 1869 à Paris. Reprenant, immédiatement après Beethoven, la forme symphonique créée par Haydn, Berlioz la renouvelle en profondeur par le biais de la symphonie à programme (Symphonie fantastique), de la symphonie concertante (Harold en Italie) et en créant la « symphonie dramatique » (Roméo et Juliette). L'échec de Benvenuto Cellini lui ferme les portes de l'Opéra de Paris, en 1838. En conséquence, l'opéra-comique Béatrice et Bénédict est créé à Baden-Baden en 1862, et son chef-d'oeuvre lyrique, Les Troyens, ne connaît qu'une création partielle à l'Opéra-Comique, en 1863. Berlioz invente les genres du « monodrame lyrique », avec Lélio ou le Retour à la vie, de la « légende dramatique », avec La Damnation de Faust, et de la « trilogie sacrée », avec L'Enfance du Christ, oeuvres conçues pour le concert, entre l'opéra et l'oratorio. Faisant souvent appel à des effectifs considérables dans sa musique symphonique (Symphonie funèbre et triomphale), religieuse (Requiem, Te Deum) et chorale (L'Impériale et Vox populi pour double choeur, Sara la baigneuse pour triple choeur), Berlioz organise d'importants concerts publics et crée le concept de festival. Enfin, avec La Captive et le cycle des Nuits d'été, il crée le genre de la mélodie avec orchestre, qui se développe aussi bien en France -- où s'illustrent notamment Duparc, Chausson, Ravel et André Jolivet -- qu'à l'étranger, avec les cycles de Wagner, Mahler, Berg, Schönberg, Richard Strauss et Benjamin Britten.

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      Book preview

      The Orchestral Conductor - Hector Berlioz

      Hector Berlioz

      The Orchestral Conductor: Theory of His Art

      Published by Good Press, 2022

      goodpress@okpublishing.info

      EAN 4064066103668

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Titlepage

      Text

      Music appears to be the most exacting of all the Arts, the cultivation of which presents the greatest difficulties, for a consummate interpretation of a musical work so as to permit an appreciation of its real value, a clear view of its physiognomy, or discernment of its real meaning and true character, is only achieved in relatively few cases. Of creative artists, the composer is almost the only one who is dependent upon a multitude of intermediate agents between the public and himself; intermediate agents, either intelligent or stupid, devoted or hostile, active or inert, capable—from first to last—of contributing to the brilliancy of his work, or of disfiguring it, misrepresenting it, and even destroying it completely.

      Singers have often been accused of forming the most dangerous of these intermediate agents; but in my opinion, without justice. The most formidable, to my thinking, is the conductor of the orchestra. A bad singer can spoil only his own part; while an incapable or malevolent conductor ruins all. Happy indeed may the composer esteem himself when the conductor into whose hands he has fallen is not at once incapable and inimical; for nothing can resist the pernicious influence of this person. The most admirable orchestra is then paralyzed, the most excellent singers are perplexed and rendered dull; there is no longer any vigor or unity; under such direction the noblest daring of the author appears extravagant, enthusiasm beholds its soaring flight checked, inspiration is violently brought down to earth, the angel's wings are broken, the man of genius passes for a madman or an idiot, the divine statue is precipitated from its pedestal, and dragged in the mud. And what is worse, the public, and even auditors endowed with the highest musical intelligence, are reduced to the impossibility (if a new work is rendered, and they are hearing it for the first time) of recognizing the ravages perpetrated by the orchestral conductor—of discovering the follies, faults, and crimes he commits. If they clearly perceive certain defects of execution, not he, but his victims, are in such cases made responsible. If he has caused the chorus-singers to fail in taking up a point in a finale, if he has allowed a discordant wavering to take place between the choir and the orchestra, or between the extreme sides of the instrumental body, if he has absurdly hurried a movement, or allowed it to linger unduly, if he has interrupted a singer before the end of a phrase, they exclaim: The singers are detestable! The orchestra has no firmness; the violins have disfigured the principal design; everybody has been wanting in vigor and animation; the tenor was quite out, he did not know his part; the harmony is confused; the author is no accompanist; the voices are—— etc.

      Except in listening to great works already known and esteemed, intelligent hearers can hardly distinguish the true culprit, and allot to him his due share

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