After all, classical music is a hobby of the minority. Before I talk to you about the book “Memoirs of Berlioz – The Son of Fury and the Literature and Art of 19th Century Western Europe”, I think it is necessary to briefly introduce Berlioz’s position as a link between the past and the future in classical music.
In the mid-1920s, when Berlioz began to appear on the classical music stage in France, it was at the time of the death of Saint Beethoven, the classical period of classical music came to an end, and the romantic period was about to dominate the music world. The year 1827, when Beethoven died, was used as the dividing line between the period of classicism and the period of romanticism, which was demarcated for the convenience of academic theory. How could it be that today, when classicism woke up, it was romanticism? Berlioz, who naturally likes to dominate, was born at a time of intense tension between classicism and romanticism. When Mendelssohn, who had had contacts with him and sincerely helped him successfully hold concerts in Germany, created the “Little Violet Concerto in E minor” like a flowing river, Berlioz stirred up France, Britain, Germany, Austria The music world of Bohemia and even Russia. Starting from Berlioz, classical music is no longer limited to elegance, sweetness, and warmth. Berlioz uses his eye-catching works and his pioneering orchestration and title music to present another possibility for classical music: harsh, scary, and unsettling, which leads to long-term reflection. Could Schoenberg’s atonal music have been born without Berlioz? Can Stravinsky’s shocking “The Sound of Spring” fall from the sky? “Whether it is possible or not is unknown. Therefore, Berlioz is an indispensable” dynamo changer “in classical music. The editor of” Berlioz’s Memoirs “added a subtitle to it,” The Son of Rapture and 19th Century Literature and Art. “” Rapture “is a key word that accurately marks Berlioz’s character.”.
“However, the term” furor “is not an innovative term coined by the editor of” Berlioz’s Memoirs “. It originates from the German word” furor “and is closely linked to another word,” advance “.”. “The Fury and Rush Movement” is a cultural movement that surged into Germany in the 1870s and 1980s. The core word is fanatical, arrogant individualism. After reading “The Memoirs of Berlioz – The Son of Fury and the Literature and Art of 19th Century Western Europe”, I have to admire the editor of this book for casually using “The Son of Fury” to define Berlioz, which is really a supernatural stroke.
Why do you see it? The generation of this memoir is a powerful proof.
Despite strong opposition from his parents, and even if his father tried to stop Berlioz’s desire to learn music and make a living by using tough means of obstinate support, he never had the slightest intention of giving up music. He demonstrated his musical talent with his works, and should be satisfied, right? It was only because the outstanding French writer Chateaubriand’s “Memoirs in the Tomb” was temporarily expensive in Luoyang that the composer Berlioz crossed the border and wrote his memoirs instead of painting “tadpoles.”.
Thanks to Berlioz’s temperament of “striving for the first place in everything”, his notes on hand not only produced a “Memoirs of Berlioz”, but also a “literary history of Western Europe in the 19th century” in the form of folk texts.
The representative works of composer Berlioz include “The Fantasy Symphony”, the second symphony “Harold in Italy”, the third symphony “Romeo and Juliet”, the fourth symphony “The Funeral and Triumph Symphony”, “The Prelude to the Roman Carnival”, “The Prelude to King Lear”, “The Pirate Prelude”, the operas “Benvenuto Cherini”, “Arthurst”, and the legendary drama “The Fall of Faust”, From this catalogue of works, we can see Shakespeare’s influence on Berlioz, and his intention to create “The Fall of Faust” was discovered by the German people, which unexpectedly attracted the contempt of the German people. The Germans do not want a French person to compose music for the great works of their great writer Goethe, reflecting from one side how healthy literary taste prevailed in Western Europe in the 19th century.
This healthy literary taste even affected Berlioz’s willingness to choose a mate. Henriette Smithson, a famous British Shakespearean actor, performed Juliet on the Paris stage, making Berlioz fall asleep all night. However, it was not until she went downhill and became heavily indebted that Henriette had to give love to Berlioz. Berlioz was so poor throughout his life that he often felt afraid of the money in his pocket because he was dazzled by the flame of love and never said a word of no about falling in love with Henriette with his wild personality. Even shortly after their marriage, their marriage was caught in Henriette’s all-around pursuit of Berlioz. “Almost half of his life was Henriette’s outburst, but after Henriette’s death, Berlioz, who was willing to be abused in his love life, praised Estelle, another woman who cared for him, loved him, and protected him, as” a rose blooming in loneliness. “”, “Henriette is a harp that intersperses my every concert, a harp that blends my joy and my hunger and sadness. However, many strings have snapped in my hands.” What a love intellectual handicap! Henriette, who never gave him the green eye, turned out to be the goddess of art of Berlioz, a man who always tried to avenge him. The onlookers could see at a glance who was most at fault in his marriage to Henriette, only himself. “However, many strings have been snapped in my hands.” The only explanation is that Berlioz fell in love with Henriette, who was lame and lost his stage, which is a performance art that embraces literature and Shakespeare.
While giving literature the most affectionate hug, Berlioz did not give the music industry a good look. roast about the award rules of the French music industry, roast about the performance level of British musicians, roast about the singing level on the Bohemian opera stage, roast about the Russian’s cognitive ability to music… This complaining French composer only gave unreserved praise to Germany and Berlioz compared with the music quality of his native France. What is a yawn? “The sentence before the full stop must be a negative sentence, praised by Germany for dozens of pages in its endless travel notes, or beaten to pieces by Berlioz due to the adaptation of Faust.”.
It is precisely because of Berlioz’s continuous roast that I am surprised: after Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the music stage in Western Europe is still so short of major generals, which is out of order! In particular, the ignorance of the nobles in Saint Petersburg and Moscow about music makes me deeply feel that we are truly lucky to have Berlioz in the world. Twelve years after Berlioz’s death, Stephen Zweig was born. During the Second World War, from 1939 to 1940, Zweig completed his masterpiece “Yesterday’s World: A European Memory”. In the book, the author traces back to the literary and artistic world of Western Europe in the mid and late 19th century, which has become a perfect dream,. Western European literary and artistic circles spent half a century completing the leap from Berlioz’s description to Zweig’s description, which was inseparable from the painstaking efforts of Berlioz.
Since it is already a dream and the past cannot be traced, why do we still read “The Memoirs of Berlioz – The Son of Fury and the Literature and Art of 19th Century Western Europe” today? It’s still a very thick book, over 600 pages. “Because it is not a history written according to official requirements, it is written according to Berlioz’s whims and can be read as a faithful history.”. Perhaps you are not interested in the topic of “learning from history to determine the rise and fall”, then the more than ten travel notes and musical essays written by Berlioz during concerts in Germany and Russia included in “Memoirs of Berlioz – The Son of the Fury and Western European Literature and Art of the 19th Century” are good articles worth recommending. Although these articles are somewhat verbose, I believe that if Berlioz had not aspired to become a composer since childhood, these texts would have been enough to push him into the ranks of writers. Therefore, if you believe that Berlioz is a composer, then you believe that “Memoirs of Berlioz – The Son of Fury and Western European Literature and Art in the 19th Century” is only about music, and you choose to pass it by because you are not a fan of classical music, then you have missed the passionate long essay of a great V in Western European literature and art in the 1940s and 1950s.
