X-Nico

unusual facts about Berlioz



Alexis Dupont

The examiners declared Berlioz's work unplayable, the Prix going to Ernest Guiraud.

Ascanio

The name was changed to Ascanio to avoid confusion with the Berlioz opera Benvenuto Cellini.

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The full ASO Chorus has thrice visited Berlin, giving three performances on each occasion of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (2003), Hector Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts (2008), and Johannes Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (2009) with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under ASO Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles.

Berwaldhallen

Herbert Blomstedt conducted the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir in Franz Berwald's Sinfonie singulière, a commission from Sven-Erik Bäck - the cantata 'Vid havets yttersta gräns' (words by Östen Sjöstrand), and the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz.

Cirque d'été

The fourth program on 6 April was billed as a séance Berlioz and included the overture from Weber's Freischütz, excerpts from Berlioz's symphonies Harold en Italie and Roméo et Juliette, and Quasimodo's aria with chorus from Louise Bertin's opera La Esmeralda sung by the tenor Jean-Étienne-Auguste Massol, who had created the role at the Paris Opera in 1836.

Émile-Alexandre Taskin

Having made his debut in 1875 in L'enfance du Christ by Berlioz, his stage debut was in September 1875 in Amiens, as Roland in Les mousquetaires de la reine by Halévy.

Euphrosine

Hector Berlioz, Evenings with the Orchestra, translated by Jacques Barzun (University of Chicago Press, 1973; 1999 reprint)

Hugh Macdonald

He went on to pursue doctoral studies, earning a Ph.D. in 1969 from Cambridge after researching the music of Berlioz for a dissertation consisting of a critical edition of Les Troyens.

Jean-Pierre Dantan

His subjects include many famous figures from the realms of politics (for example, Talleyrand, William Douglas), music and the arts (Beethoven, Paganini, Verdi, Liszt, Berlioz), and literature (Victor Hugo, Balzac).

July Column

Music composed for the occasion was Hector Berlioz' Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, which was performed in the open air under the direction of Berlioz himself, leading the procession of musicians which ended at the Place de la Bastille.

La damnation de Faust

He returned to the material in 1845, to make a larger work, with some additional text by Almire Gandonnière to Berlioz's specifications, that he first called a "concert opera", and as it expanded, finally a "dramatic legend".

Ladislav Černý

He enjoyed a solo career often performing the solo viola part of Berlioz's Harold en Italie and other repertoire.

Lélio

Both the symphony and Lélio were inspired by the composer's unhappy love affairs, the symphony by Harriet Smithson, Lélio by Camille Moke, who had broken off her engagement to Berlioz, prompting the composer to contemplate suicide.

Offstage brass and percussion

In Act III of Berlioz's opera Les Troyens, a group of offstage trumpets plays a distorted-sounding fanfare along with cornets to create an unusual dramatic effect.

Paul Doktor

They also joined forces in making four television films about the viola for the National Educational Network; these comprise rarely performed music by Marais, Telemann, Dittersdorf, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Hummel, Berlioz, Brahms and Flackton.

Pièces pittoresques

At first echoing the animated rhythms of Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict, it evolves into a more complex beat, avoiding the bar-line.

Saxotromba

A recent translator of the Treatise, Hugh Macdonald, doubts that Sax ever produced as many models of saxotromba as he did of saxhorns - Berlioz (2002), p. 304-305.

Symphony

Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, a work famous for its innovative orchestration (Berlioz 2002, xv) is also a programme work and has both a march and a waltz and five movements instead of the customary four.

Tatiana Riabouchinska

Subsequently, she created roles in other Massine works, including the first three of his famous, and controversial, "symphonic" ballets: Frivolity in Les Présages (1933), set to Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony; the third and fourth movements of Choreartium (1933), set to Brahms's Fourth Symphony; and Reverie in Symphonie Fantastique (1936), by Berlioz.

Veasey

Josephine Veasey (born 1930), British mezzo-soprano, associated with Wagner and Berlioz roles

Vehmic court

The Freischoeffen also provided the subject for Berlioz's unfinished opera Les francs-juges, the overture to which provided the signature tune for 'Face to Face', the well-known early series of British television interviews, conducted by the Rt Hon John Freeman MBE.

Whole tone scale

H. C. Colles names as the "childhood of the whole-tone scale" the music of Berlioz and Schubert in France and then Russians Glinka and Dargomyzhsky.


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