Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) - Roméo et Juliette Op. 17 by Pierre Monteux (Full) / Remastered 🎧 Qobuz bit.ly/3hgvZOf Deezer bit.ly/3iXMvmN 🎧 Amazon Music amzn.to/3iX3mG2 Tidal bit.ly/3FjS7PO 🎧 UA-cam Music bit.ly/3PlB18H 🎧 Spotify - Apple Music - 🎧 Napster, Pandora, LineMusic日本, Awa日本, Anghami, QQ音乐 … 00:00 Scène d'amour - Part III - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony) Bonus: 16:08 Roméo seul - Tristesse - Part II - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony) 23:11 Grande fête chez Capulets - Part II - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony) COMPLETE WORKS AVAILABLE ON UA-cam Music (Qobuz (HI-RES), Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal..): ua-cam.com/video/pyW869Rahe4/v-deo.html London Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Pierre Monteux Recorded in 1962, at London New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR 🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr 🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg ❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page. Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo. Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun." No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it." The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers... *** COMPLETE PRESENTATION: LOOK THE FIRST PINNED COMMENT *** Hector Berlioz PLAYLIST (references recordings): ua-cam.com/video/hU8xis6WCeM/v-deo.html
Shakespeare and Virgil have long been twin idols in Berlioz's artistic thinking. He carried their lines in his head and heart. In their writings he found the inspiration for three of his greatest masterpieces. From his childhood he venerated Virgil, a veneration that gave birth to Les Troyens. From his adult passion for Shakespeare came not only Romeo and Juliet, but also Beatrice and Benedick, the overture to King Lear, and the neglected splendors of his music for Hamlet. The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo. Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun." No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it." The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers. One of the finest moments in the score follows as Berlioz gives us a brief vocal scherzetto inspired by Mercutio's quicksilver portrait of Mab, "la messagère fluette et légère! " This is the tenor soloist's only appearance, undoubtedly the shortest in all symphonic literature, and even this he must share with the chorus as it echoes his breathless flight. A transition passage gradually lessens the pace as Berlioz prepares us for the Love Scene to come by giving us a fleeting sight of Romeo once more alone. We hear the sound of the ball at the Capulets, and the song of the departing guests, marvelously assigned to the voices of young men heard as they leave the ball, walking home in the late night hours through the empty streets, singing of the gaiety of the ball and the beauty of the young ladies of Verona. The extended Love Scene that follows is without rival in all instrumental literature. For its muted sounds Berlioz finds voices in cellos and woodwinds that become the very sounds and scents of the Veronese night. Berlioz may say, as he does in his Memoirs, that his dramatic symphony resembles Shakespeare's tragedy very little. Yet in this scene we have "the nightingale, and not the lark" until "more light and light it grows!' The slow movement thus ended, Berlioz turns again to the image of Queen Mab for his full-scale scherzo. Unimpeded by voices, he writes a passage of unprecedented brilliance, to say nothing of hurdles it tosses nonchalantly at the orchestral players. Liszt wrote these helpful suggestions to Gustav Schmidt when that conductor at Frankfurt-am-Main was preparing Roméo et]uliette for performance there in 1853. " l urge you to rehearse the strings and wind sections separately. Queen Mab, especially, is a difficult piece. When I conduct it, I like occasionally to use Beethoven's method of beating four measures as four quarters, as if it were in 4/4 time (ritmo di quattro battute), as in the 'Scherzo' of the Ninth Symphony, thus securing more repose without affecting your precision in any way Try it some time; I think you will agree that I am right. I advise you to keep the antique cymbals near your stand - and as a rule, Berlioz prefers to have the fermatas very long." Liszt sent along a pair of antique cymbals needed for the Queen Mab together with the score and parts. Once the scherzo is over, Berlioz plunges us at once into the final tragedy. He breaks it into sections that begin with a funeral march depicting the grief of the Capulets at what they think to be the death of Juliet. The funeral procession music is in fugal style. At first the orchestra plays the subject over which the chorus sings, in unison octaves of lament, "Jetez les fleurs pour la vierge expirée!" In the middle of the march, the musical forces are reversed: the chorus sings the fugal material and the orchestral intones the octaves, It is a passage of studied monotony whose cumulative effect is impressive. There follows one last purely instrumental passage reminiscent of the instrumental interjections that dot the vocal portions of the finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony We hear Romeo's frenzied unbelief at Juliet's supposed death, and then, as Berlioz follows the so-called "Garrick ending," we visualize the lovers' dying before each other's eyes. Finally, after the two families erupt in a final outburst of mutual rage, Friar Laurence, last of the three soloists to be heard, enters with his reconciliation oath, in which double and small chorus join. 🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr 🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg ❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page. Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
The first Work I' ve listened at , was the Symphony Fantastic with Lorin Maazel on a Polydor recording , my best recording of this MUSIC ever ! ❗️🎯❗️♦️
Shakespeare and Virgil have long been twin idols in Berlioz's artistic thinking. He carried their lines in his head and heart. In their writings he found the inspiration for three of his greatest masterpieces. From his childhood he venerated Virgil, a veneration that gave birth to Les Troyens. From his adult passion for Shakespeare came not only Romeo and Juliet, but also Beatrice and Benedick, the overture to King Lear, and the neglected splendors of his music for Hamlet. The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo. Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun." No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it." The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers. One of the finest moments in the score follows as Berlioz gives us a brief vocal scherzetto inspired by Mercutio's quicksilver portrait of Mab, "la messagère fluette et légère! " This is the tenor soloist's only appearance, undoubtedly the shortest in all symphonic literature, and even this he must share with the chorus as it echoes his breathless flight. A transition passage gradually lessens the pace as Berlioz prepares us for the Love Scene to come by giving us a fleeting sight of Romeo once more alone. We hear the sound of the ball at the Capulets, and the song of the departing guests, marvelously assigned to the voices of young men heard as they leave the ball, walking home in the late night hours through the empty streets, singing of the gaiety of the ball and the beauty of the young ladies of Verona. The extended Love Scene that follows is without rival in all instrumental literature. For its muted sounds Berlioz finds voices in cellos and woodwinds that become the very sounds and scents of the Veronese night. Berlioz may say, as he does in his Memoirs, that his dramatic symphony resembles Shakespeare's tragedy very little. Yet in this scene we have "the nightingale, and not the lark" until "more light and light it grows!' The slow movement thus ended, Berlioz turns again to the image of Queen Mab for his full-scale scherzo. Unimpeded by voices, he writes a passage of unprecedented brilliance, to say nothing of hurdles it tosses nonchalantly at the orchestral players. Liszt wrote these helpful suggestions to Gustav Schmidt when that conductor at Frankfurt-am-Main was preparing Roméo et]uliette for performance there in 1853. " l urge you to rehearse the strings and wind sections separately. Queen Mab, especially, is a difficult piece. When I conduct it, I like occasionally to use Beethoven's method of beating four measures as four quarters, as if it were in 4/4 time (ritmo di quattro battute), as in the 'Scherzo' of the Ninth Symphony, thus securing more repose without affecting your precision in any way Try it some time; I think you will agree that I am right. I advise you to keep the antique cymbals near your stand - and as a rule, Berlioz prefers to have the fermatas very long." Liszt sent along a pair of antique cymbals needed for the Queen Mab together with the score and parts. Once the scherzo is over, Berlioz plunges us at once into the final tragedy. He breaks it into sections that begin with a funeral march depicting the grief of the Capulets at what they think to be the death of Juliet. The funeral procession music is in fugal style. At first the orchestra plays the subject over which the chorus sings, in unison octaves of lament, "Jetez les fleurs pour la vierge expirée!" In the middle of the march, the musical forces are reversed: the chorus sings the fugal material and the orchestral intones the octaves, It is a passage of studied monotony whose cumulative effect is impressive. There follows one last purely instrumental passage reminiscent of the instrumental interjections that dot the vocal portions of the finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony We hear Romeo's frenzied unbelief at Juliet's supposed death, and then, as Berlioz follows the so-called "Garrick ending," we visualize the lovers' dying before each other's eyes. Finally, after the two families erupt in a final outburst of mutual rage, Friar Laurence, last of the three soloists to be heard, enters with his reconciliation oath, in which double and small chorus join. 🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr 🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg ❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page. Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
Iron Heart: What a petty comment from a petty person. “I don’t like ya, but I’m helping the channel, Montez, Resnik, Turp and Ward.” Keep your rap, rock ‘n roll and attitude where the sun doesn’t shine.
This is an odd comment: do you mean that you don't like the romantic period (litterature, music, painting, etc) or that you think that this rendition is too 'romantic' even for a romantic composer?
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) - Roméo et Juliette Op. 17 by Pierre Monteux (Full) / Remastered
🎧 Qobuz bit.ly/3hgvZOf Deezer bit.ly/3iXMvmN
🎧 Amazon Music amzn.to/3iX3mG2 Tidal bit.ly/3FjS7PO
🎧 UA-cam Music bit.ly/3PlB18H
🎧 Spotify - Apple Music -
🎧 Napster, Pandora, LineMusic日本, Awa日本, Anghami, QQ音乐 …
00:00 Scène d'amour - Part III - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony)
Bonus:
16:08 Roméo seul - Tristesse - Part II - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony)
23:11 Grande fête chez Capulets - Part II - Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17, H 79 (A Dramatic Symphony)
COMPLETE WORKS AVAILABLE ON UA-cam Music (Qobuz (HI-RES), Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal..):
ua-cam.com/video/pyW869Rahe4/v-deo.html
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Pierre Monteux
Recorded in 1962, at London
New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR
🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr
🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg
❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page.
Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo.
Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun."
No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it."
The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers...
*** COMPLETE PRESENTATION: LOOK THE FIRST PINNED COMMENT ***
Hector Berlioz PLAYLIST (references recordings): ua-cam.com/video/hU8xis6WCeM/v-deo.html
Shakespeare and Virgil have long been twin idols in Berlioz's artistic thinking. He carried their lines in his head and heart. In their writings he found the inspiration for three of his greatest masterpieces. From his childhood he venerated Virgil, a veneration that gave birth to Les Troyens. From his adult passion for Shakespeare came not only Romeo and Juliet, but also Beatrice and Benedick, the overture to King Lear, and the neglected splendors of his music for Hamlet.
The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo.
Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun."
No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it."
The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers.
One of the finest moments in the score follows as Berlioz gives us a brief vocal scherzetto inspired by Mercutio's quicksilver portrait of Mab, "la messagère fluette et légère! " This is the tenor soloist's only appearance, undoubtedly the shortest in all symphonic literature, and even this he must share with the chorus as it echoes his breathless flight. A transition passage gradually lessens the pace as Berlioz prepares us for the Love Scene to come by giving us a fleeting sight of Romeo once more alone. We hear the sound of the ball at the Capulets, and the song of the departing guests, marvelously assigned to the
voices of young men heard as they leave the ball, walking home in the late night hours through the empty streets, singing of the gaiety of the ball and the beauty of the young ladies of Verona.
The extended Love Scene that follows is without rival in all instrumental literature. For its muted sounds Berlioz finds voices in cellos and woodwinds that become the very sounds and scents of the Veronese night. Berlioz may say, as he does in his Memoirs, that his dramatic symphony resembles Shakespeare's tragedy very little. Yet in this scene we have "the nightingale, and not the lark" until "more light and light it grows!' The slow movement thus ended, Berlioz turns again to the image of Queen Mab for his full-scale scherzo. Unimpeded by voices, he writes a passage of unprecedented brilliance, to say nothing of hurdles it tosses nonchalantly at the orchestral players. Liszt wrote these helpful suggestions to Gustav Schmidt when that conductor at Frankfurt-am-Main was preparing Roméo et]uliette for performance there in 1853. " l urge you to rehearse the strings and wind sections separately. Queen Mab, especially, is a difficult piece. When I conduct it, I like occasionally to use Beethoven's method of beating four measures as four quarters, as if it were in 4/4 time (ritmo di quattro battute), as in the 'Scherzo' of the Ninth Symphony, thus securing more repose without affecting your precision in any way Try it some time; I think you will agree that I am right. I advise you to keep the antique cymbals near your stand - and as a rule, Berlioz prefers to have the fermatas very long." Liszt sent along a pair of antique cymbals needed for the Queen Mab together with the score and parts.
Once the scherzo is over, Berlioz plunges us at once into the final tragedy. He breaks it into sections that begin with a funeral march depicting the grief of the Capulets at what they think to be the death of Juliet. The funeral procession music is in fugal style. At first the orchestra plays the subject over which the chorus sings, in unison octaves of lament, "Jetez les fleurs pour la vierge expirée!" In the middle of the march, the musical forces are reversed: the chorus sings the fugal material and the orchestral intones the octaves, It is a passage of studied monotony whose cumulative effect is impressive. There follows one last purely instrumental passage reminiscent of the instrumental interjections that dot the vocal portions of the finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony We hear Romeo's frenzied unbelief at Juliet's supposed death, and then, as Berlioz follows the so-called "Garrick ending," we visualize the lovers' dying before each other's eyes. Finally, after the two families erupt in a final outburst of mutual rage, Friar Laurence, last of the three soloists to be heard, enters with his reconciliation oath, in which double and small chorus join.
🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr
🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg
❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page.
Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
One of my favorite composer’s ❤️❤️❤️❤️
The ONE of mine ❣️ ❤ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❣️
❣️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❣️
Mine too
The first Work I' ve listened at , was the Symphony Fantastic with Lorin Maazel on a Polydor recording , my best recording of this MUSIC ever ! ❗️🎯❗️♦️
❗️👍❗️😎❗️👍❗️♦️
Shakespeare and Virgil have long been twin idols in Berlioz's artistic thinking. He carried their lines in his head and heart. In their writings he found the inspiration for three of his greatest masterpieces. From his childhood he venerated Virgil, a veneration that gave birth to Les Troyens. From his adult passion for Shakespeare came not only Romeo and Juliet, but also Beatrice and Benedick, the overture to King Lear, and the neglected splendors of his music for Hamlet.
The text for the vocal passages is by a friend of the composer's, the poet Emile Deschamps, in whose translations Berlioz had first heard Shakespeare in French. For the most part his language is poetically and emotionally inadequate. But the music is at once the most impassioned and the most restrained we have yet heard from Berlioz. For pure orchestral eloquence he never surpassed the magical poetry of sound he found for the love scene. Nor did he, or for that matter, did Mendelssohn with whom he once discussed Queen Mab as material suitable for an orchestral scherzo, ever write a more scintillating or virtuoso display vehicle than the fiendishly difficult scherzo that occupies the classic symphonic position in Roméo.
Throughout the new symphony Berlioz wrote at that high emotional pitch which Gounod ascribed to him in 1882 when the younger, rather milk-and-watery composer was providing an introduction to a new edition of Berlioz letters: "With Berlioz every impression and every feeling was carried to extremities; he only knew joy and sorrow at the pitch of delirium: as he said of himself, he was a 'volcano'. " Gounod had, years before writing this comment, added his own bland tints to an operatic version of Roméo et Juliette that Berlioz would no doubt have included with five earlier versions he aptly labeled pale tapers, three of them being hardly little pink candles," though all, he said, "pretended to light their torch at the great love-sun."
No such pallid sentiment ever aflicted Hector Berlioz. His fear was rather that he might sometime let the true depth of his emotions betray him in his composing. In 1856, he wrote to the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Another danger that besets me in composing the music for this drama [Les Troyens] is in the fact that the feelings I am called upon to express are inclined to move me too deeply. This can bring the whole matter to nought. Passionate subjects must be dealt with in cold blood. This is what held me back so much in writing the adagio of Roméo et Juliette, and the reconciliation scene in the last movement. I thought I should never come to grips with it."
The form in which he ultimately cast his dramatic symphony was, au fond, the classic four-movement symphonic structure he revered in Beethoven. But within that framework, Berlioz hesitated at no innovation that would intensify the effect of his chosen medium. Opening instantly upon the atmosphere of strife between Verona's famed warring families, an orchestral introduction sets a scene at whose height brasses in somewhat more dignified manner advise us that the Prince has again intervened between the belligerents. Then the symphony's first voices, those of a small chorus and contralto soloist, begin the narration that explains the agitated instrumental prelude. The chorus continues with the description of Romeo's first sight of Juliet and his visit to her balcony. The contralto's final verses describe the first, rapturous agreement between the ill-starred lovers.
One of the finest moments in the score follows as Berlioz gives us a brief vocal scherzetto inspired by Mercutio's quicksilver portrait of Mab, "la messagère fluette et légère! " This is the tenor soloist's only appearance, undoubtedly the shortest in all symphonic literature, and even this he must share with the chorus as it echoes his breathless flight. A transition passage gradually lessens the pace as Berlioz prepares us for the Love Scene to come by giving us a fleeting sight of Romeo once more alone. We hear the sound of the ball at the Capulets, and the song of the departing guests, marvelously assigned to the
voices of young men heard as they leave the ball, walking home in the late night hours through the empty streets, singing of the gaiety of the ball and the beauty of the young ladies of Verona.
The extended Love Scene that follows is without rival in all instrumental literature. For its muted sounds Berlioz finds voices in cellos and woodwinds that become the very sounds and scents of the Veronese night. Berlioz may say, as he does in his Memoirs, that his dramatic symphony resembles Shakespeare's tragedy very little. Yet in this scene we have "the nightingale, and not the lark" until "more light and light it grows!' The slow movement thus ended, Berlioz turns again to the image of Queen Mab for his full-scale scherzo. Unimpeded by voices, he writes a passage of unprecedented brilliance, to say nothing of hurdles it tosses nonchalantly at the orchestral players. Liszt wrote these helpful suggestions to Gustav Schmidt when that conductor at Frankfurt-am-Main was preparing Roméo et]uliette for performance there in 1853. " l urge you to rehearse the strings and wind sections separately. Queen Mab, especially, is a difficult piece. When I conduct it, I like occasionally to use Beethoven's method of beating four measures as four quarters, as if it were in 4/4 time (ritmo di quattro battute), as in the 'Scherzo' of the Ninth Symphony, thus securing more repose without affecting your precision in any way Try it some time; I think you will agree that I am right. I advise you to keep the antique cymbals near your stand - and as a rule, Berlioz prefers to have the fermatas very long." Liszt sent along a pair of antique cymbals needed for the Queen Mab together with the score and parts.
Once the scherzo is over, Berlioz plunges us at once into the final tragedy. He breaks it into sections that begin with a funeral march depicting the grief of the Capulets at what they think to be the death of Juliet. The funeral procession music is in fugal style. At first the orchestra plays the subject over which the chorus sings, in unison octaves of lament, "Jetez les fleurs pour la vierge expirée!" In the middle of the march, the musical forces are reversed: the chorus sings the fugal material and the orchestral intones the octaves, It is a passage of studied monotony whose cumulative effect is impressive. There follows one last purely instrumental passage reminiscent of the instrumental interjections that dot the vocal portions of the finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony We hear Romeo's frenzied unbelief at Juliet's supposed death, and then, as Berlioz follows the so-called "Garrick ending," we visualize the lovers' dying before each other's eyes. Finally, after the two families erupt in a final outburst of mutual rage, Friar Laurence, last of the three soloists to be heard, enters with his reconciliation oath, in which double and small chorus join.
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Brilliant!👍👌👏🎼👏🎶👏🎶👏☘🤝🙏
A passionate performance. Too many others are milquetoast. Toscanini's performance is also fiery.
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i like this channel, but dislike romances.
I am pressing the like buttom to help ya, though.
Your anguish is palpable. Here's hoping that many years of counseling will help you.
@Lyle Waller I don't feel any anguish.
Iron Heart: What a petty comment from a petty person. “I don’t like ya, but I’m helping the channel, Montez, Resnik, Turp and Ward.” Keep your rap, rock ‘n roll and attitude where the sun doesn’t shine.
This is an odd comment: do you mean that you don't like the romantic period (litterature, music, painting, etc) or that you think that this rendition is too 'romantic' even for a romantic composer?
@@georgesclermont1911 I don't like romantic art in general. but it doesn't matter anymore, I left the channel.