Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art
    The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art
    The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art
    Ebook69 pages48 minutes

    The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art

    By Hector Berlioz

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJul 1, 2010
    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.

    Read more from Hector Berlioz

    Related to The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Unravelling Ravel

      Aug 5, 2021

      Unravelling Ravel
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Keys To Success

      Mar 17, 2022

      The Keys To Success
      1 min read

    • Article

      Felix Mendelssohn

      Mar 19, 2020

      Felix Mendelssohn
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Meaning Of The Music Artistry

      Mar 18, 2022

      Many piano students fall into the trap of spending hours a day practising technical exercises and studies without simultaneously developing their ear, and their understanding of how the music they strive to master is constructed. To be a good pianist

      5 min read

    • Article

      Benjamin Britten

      Aug 9, 2022

      Benjamin Britten
      6 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Team-players: Why Orchestras Reflect The Best Of Us, And How They Should Reflect Us Back

      Jun 1, 2022

      When I was a young conductor stricken with impostor syndrome, my greatest fear was conducting anything by Mozart. As a child, his music had been a lifesaver; he was my confidant, my best friend. And for many years I avoided conducting this most treas

      3 min read

    • Article

      Timothy Vernon + Jordan de Souza

      Nov 6, 2020

      JORDAN DE SOUZA: What was it like to discover Vienna as a young person in the 60s and 70s? TIMOTHY VERNON: When I arrived to begin my studies in Vienna in 1965, the Staatsvertrag, which created the Second Austrian Republic, was only 10 years old. Wor

      7 min read

    • Article

      Backstage With…

      Jun 14, 2022

      Backstage With…
      1 min read

    • Article

      Beneath The Surface

      Jan 22, 2021

      Beneath The Surface
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Quietest Guest Of All

      Mar 30, 2023

      Crown your career with the clavichord. You cannot, I admit, play concertos with big ensembles, since it does not roar and thunder like the pianoforte; neither can you, surrounded by a large audience, sound above their shouts of bravo and make their c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Emmanuelle Haïm

      Jan 21, 2021

      Emmanuelle Haïm
      5 min read

    • Article

      Raising The Tone

      Jun 4, 2021

      Raising The Tone
      2 min read

    • Article

      What Is Difficulty?

      Jan 19, 2024

      What Is Difficulty?
      7 min read

    • Article

      François-Xavier Roth

      May 14, 2020

      François-Xavier Roth
      6 min read

    • Article

      TimeTravellers

      Oct 3, 2023

      Like most teenagers, François-Xavier Roth was a dreamer. But while others formed bands in their garages and fantasised about becoming the next big thing, Roth was reading Nikolaus Harnoncourt and imagining something quite different. ‘I was always fas

      6 min read

    • Article

      Mark Elder

      Apr 16, 2024

      Mark Elder
      5 min read

    • Article

      Richard Morrison

      Oct 28, 2021

      Most of us would agree that music is a language, arguably humanity’s most expressive and oldest language. What it doesn’t have, unlike speech and writing, is precision. Music can be used to express, for example, a feeling of love towards someone – as

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sackbut Player

      Aug 6, 2020

      Sackbut Player
      3 min read

    • Article

      Work In Progress

      May 17, 2022

      Work In Progress
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dionysian Ecstasy

      Mar 1, 2020

      Dionysian Ecstasy
      15 min read

    • Article

      Record Reviews

      May 10, 2022

      Record Reviews
      15 min read

    • Article

      Opera Reduced

      Mar 15, 2021

      Opera Reduced
      9 min read

    Reviews for The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Orchestral Conductor Theory of His Art - Hector Berlioz

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Orchestral Conductor, by Hector Berlioz

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Orchestral Conductor

      Theory of His Art

      Author: Hector Berlioz

      Release Date: December 28, 2008 [EBook #27646]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR ***

      Produced by David Newman, Jana Srna and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Transcriber's Note:

      Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible; changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the original text are marked like this

      . The original text appears when hovering the cursor over the marked text.

      THE

      Orchestral Conductor

      THEORY OF HIS ART

      BY

      HECTOR BERLIOZ.

      NEW YORK

      PUBLISHED By CARL FISCHER

      6-10 Fourth Ave., Cooper Square.

      Copyright, 1902, By Carl Fischer.

      THE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR.

      THEORY OF HIS ART.

      By HECTOR BERLIOZ.

      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 of blame; but the number of these is still so limited that their judgment has little weight; and the hostile conductor—in presence of the public who would

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1