In nothing did the originality of Berlioz show itself more strikingly than in his treatment of the Orchestra.
So many of his ideas and effects were used, and carried still further, by Wagner that some of the richness and beauty of tone of the modern Orchestra that we usually give to Wagner belongs rightfully to Hector Berlioz. For instance, Berlioz discovered the value of pianissimo brass effects; he discovered the ethereal charm of harmonies on divided violins; he discovered the true worth of the viola; he introduced the harp into the Symphony Orchestra; he grouped instruments into families and got from them rich chords in different shades of the same tone-color; he advocated the tuba as a substitution for the coarser ophicleide; he made many experiments with the kettledrums and other instruments of percussion; he divided the strings into many parts (one of his scores calls for five double-basses); and he also advocated the sunken and hidden Orchestra, which Wagner realized in his theatre of Bayreuth.
Wagner frankly confesses his debt to this French genius. “Berlioz was diabolically clever,” he wrote: “I made a minute study of his instrumentation as early as 1840 in Paris and I have often taken up his scores since. I profited greatly both as regards what to do and what to leave undone.”
It is absurd to say that without Berlioz there would have been no Wagner; but it is no exaggeration to say that without Berlioz there might have been a Wagner very different from the one we know.
“Berlioz’s startling originality as a musician rests upon a physical and mental organization very different from, and in some respects superior to, that of other eminent masters,—a most ardent nervous temperament; a gorgeous imagination, incessantly active, heated at times to the verge of insanity; an abnormally subtle and acute sense of hearing; the keenest intellect, of a disserting analyzing turn; the most violent will, manifesting itself in a spirit of enterprise and daring equalled only by its tenacity of purpose and indefatigable perseverance.
“From a technical point of view certain of Berlioz’s attainments are phenomenal. The gigantic proportions, the grandiose style, the imposing weight of those long and broad harmonic and rhythmical progressions towards some end afar off, the exceptional means employed for exceptional ends—in a word, the colossal cyclopean aspect of certain movements are without parallel in musical art.
“The originality and inexhaustible variety of rhythms and the surpassing perfection of his instrumentation are points willingly conceded by Berlioz’s staunchest opponents. As far as the technique of instrumentation is concerned, it may truly be asserted that he treats the Orchestra with the same supreme daring and absolute mastery with which Paganini treated the violin and Liszt the pianoforte. No one before him had so clearly realized the individuality of each particular instrument, its resources and capabilities. In his works the equation between a particular phrase and a particular instrument is invariably perfect; and over and above this, his experiments in orchestral color, his combination of single instruments with others so as to form groups, and again his combination of several separate groups of instruments with one another are as novel and as beautiful as they are uniformly successful.”[76]
Berlioz wrote a Treatise on Instrumentation, which he curiously numbered among his works as opus 10.
Hector Berlioz was born in La Cote Saint-André, near Grenoble, in 1803, and died in Paris in 1869. His father, Dr. Louis Berlioz, wanted him to be a physician and sent him to Paris at the age of eighteen to study medicine. But medicine was against his will, and it was not long before Berlioz abandoned these studies and entered the Paris Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur. Soon his parents stopped his allowance; and the young man was forced to earn his living by singing in the chorus of an obscure theatre. He was not popular in the Conservatory: his character and his genius were too original. However, in 1830 he obtained the prix de Rome, that envied purse enabling the winner to study in Italy. On returning to Paris, he earned his living by his pen—he was a brilliant journalist—and gave concerts of his works as he finished their composition.