Berlioz completed three operas, the first of which, Benvenuto Cellini, was an outright failure. The second, the huge epic Les Troyens (The Trojans), was so large in scale that it was never staged.
Harold In ItalyHarold In Italy, based on a poem by Lord Byron, is a symphony in four movements for solo viola and an orchestra. Berlioz composed Harold In Italy in 1834 on commission from the virtuoso violinist Paganini, who had just bought a Stradivarius viola. Paganini never played the piece as he thought it did not display his technical skills sufficiently however when he heard the work publicly performed he apologised to Berlioz on his knees in front of an orchestra. The character of Harold is loosely based on Byron’s Childe Harold, a melancholy wanderer who witnesses scenes of Italian life. The experience behind the symphony owes rather less to Byron’s poem than Berlioz’s own travels in Italy.
L’Enfance Du ChristL’Enfance Du Christ is an oratorio by Berlioz based on the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. It tells the story of the birth of Jesus and the journey of the Holy Family as they escape Bethlehem and head across Egypt to the city of Sais. The beautiful carol Shepherd’s Farewell (L’Adieu Des Bergers), from L’Enfance Du Christ, depicts the shepherds saying goodbye to Jesus as the Holy family leave Bethlehem for Egypt. Most of the work was composed in 1853 and 1854 but it also incorporates an earlier work, La Fuite En Egypte, composed in 1850.
Les TroyensBerlioz’s five-act opera Les Troyens, composed between 1856 and 1858, was his most ambitious work and is considered by many to be his masterpiece. The drama of the Trojan war has captivated audiences from literature to film and nowhere does it come to life more vividly than in Les Troyens. The opera, one of the best Berlioz works, represented the pinnacle of Berlioz’s creative abilities and the convergence of all his major influences, literary and musical, that shaped his musical personality.
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