Home


-- Who we are --

The Berlioz Society - a non-profit-making organisation of persons with an interest
in and a love of the music of the great French Composer Hector Berlioz (1803 -1869) - is a
registered Charity. Chaired by David Cairns, author of the definitive two-volume life of Berlioz,
the Society has an international membership including the world-renowned Berlioz conductor Sir Colin
Davis and Professor Hugh Macdonald, editor of the New Berlioz Edition.

-- What we do --

The Society's aim is to increase the public's awareness of the life and works of Berlioz,
this great composer, especially the lesser known works. To this end the Society organises
meetings, weekends, conferences and publications, and other events.

-------ooooooo0000000ooooooo-------

--- About Berlioz ---

The author Victor Hugo, the painter Eugène Delacroix and the composer Hector Berlioz were the troika of the French Romantic
Movement of the 19th century. Heavily influenced by Gluck, Weber and Beethoven, Berlioz (1803-69) spearheaded the romantic
movement in music, writing some of the first programme music, introducing choirs, vocal soloists, the harp and the saxophone
 - the invention of his Belgian friend Adolphe Sax - permanently into the symphony orchestra, experimenting with "stereo"
and offstage acoustical effects, inventing the 'idée fixe' - a recurring short melodic strain signifying a person or
obsession - forerunner of Wagner's 'leitmotiv' - and creating the modern orchestra. A great conductor, orchestrator,
journalist, music critic and writer, Berlioz only played the guitar and the flute, the orchestra being his instrument. He
composed about 150 works, notably four symphonies, three operas, a requiem and two masses as well as song cycles, cantatas,
concert overtures, Hungary's national anthem and a rumbustious reworking of France's "Marseillaise". His best known work is
the autobiographical Symphonie fantastique (1830) - in which the 'idée fixe' - representing the composer's passion for the
Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson - plays a major role.

After years of being considered an eccentric outsider in classical music, Berlioz is now recognised as a true original and
one of the greatest innovators ever. Even his detractors have always had to concede his supremacy as an orchestrator, but
now, with all his large scale works available on recordings, his great melodic gifts and unique compositional imagination
are in the public arena for all to appreciate. In addition, his writings display the warmth and wit of his personality and
his immense critical intelligence, showing him to be one of the most engaging of the great composers.

The influence of Berlioz on later composers can hardly be exaggerated.  To cite but one example, in his "Portrait of Elgar",
second edition (1982) p. 218, Michael Kennedy says of the "Canto popolare" episode in the concert overture 'In the South - Alassio'
"This haunting melody, original and so Elgarian, but Italian in spirit, is given to the solo viola as a
salute to Berlioz from ‘Edward in Italy’."


"Which of these two powers, love or music, can elevate man to the sublimest heights?
Why separate them? They are the two wings of the soul."  Hector Berlioz 1803–1869

More about Berlioz:-

the compositions

the writings

 
-------ooooooo0000000ooooooo-------

NOTICES -

Spreading the message - Rosie Yacobi, a member of The Berlioz Society, 'appeared' live on Radio 3 on the morning of Friday 14th October to tell the radio audience how her love for Berlioz's music was initiated and how later she joined the Berlioz Society and attended its activities. The programme then played Villanelle and the Royal Hunt and Storm; both from recordings by Sir Colin Davis. Unfortunately, there wasn't an opportunity for her to say he is our Patron.

BERLIOZ SOCIETY LONDON WALK: WEDNESDAY 11 MAY 2011
A one-day Society Walking Tour of sites in London associated with Berlioz took place in May. Berlioz made five visits to London in the period 1847-55. The Walk started at the elegant townhouse at 58 Queen Anne Street W1,where Berlioz stayed with Marie Recio in 1851 in connection with the Great Exhibition. After visiting the house, with its fine open staircase and first floor double drawing room (which at the time of Berlioz’s stay housed the Beethoven Room, where the Beethoven Quartet Society held concerts) the Walk focused on relevant sites in the Manchester Square-Harley Street-Hanover Square district before moving on to Covent Garden. TIME & PLACE: Members assembled at 11am on Wednesday May 11 outside 58 Queen Anne Street, and fortunately the rain held off. This very enjoyable tour finished later in the afternoon.
This plaque, erected by the Greater London Council in the days when the building was occupied by the Marriage Guidance Council, commemorates Berlioz's stay in this house on one of his visits to London
Members of the Society waiting to enter the said house at No. 58 (in Berlioz's time, No. 27) Queen Anne Street, courtesy of the present owners

-------ooooooo0000000ooooooo-------

The annual Festival Berlioz, based in HB's native village of La Côte-Saint-André in the Isère département near Grenoble took place this year from August 18 - 28 on the theme of "Berlioz, Liszt & The Devil" with 50 concerts, lectures and events, involving 1,200 musicians, scheduled. More details: www.festivalberlioz.com The Society organised a visit to the festival. The Musée Hector Berlioz at the composer's birthplace in La Côte-Saint-André in southeast France staged a special exhibition entitled "Fantin-Latour - Painter & Lithographer - Homage to Berlioz" from end-June to end-December 2011. See www.musee-hector-berlioz.fr

-------ooooooo0000000ooooooo-------


Pictures of the Festival

-------ooooooo0000000ooooooo---------

A selection of performances, past and future

Berlioz : Le Corsaire Overture, Fauré, Dusapin, Stravinsky, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Proms, July 27