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Hector Berlioz:
Evenings with the Orchestra. Edited
and translated
by Jacques Barzun.
With a new Foreword
by Peter Bloom.
408 p., 1 halftone. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
1956, 1999
Paper $16.00
0-226-04374-6
~ ~ ~
During the performances of fashionable operas in an
unidentified but
«civilized» town in northern Europe, the musicians (with
the
exception
of the conscientious bass drummer) tell tales, read stories, and
exchange gossip to relieve the tedium of the bad music they are paid to
perform.
In this delightful and now classic narrative written by the
brilliant composer and critic Hector Berlioz, we are privy to
twenty-five highly entertaining evenings with a fascinating group of
distracted performers.
Jacques Barzun's pitch-perfect translation of Evenings
with the Orchestra - with a new foreword by Berlioz scholar Peter
Bloom - testifies to the
enduring pleasure found in this most witty and amusing book.
~ ~ ~
«... full
of knowledge, penetration, good sense, individual wit, stock humor,
justifiable exasperation, understanding exaggeration, emotion and
rhetoric of every kind.» -
Randall Jarrell,
New York Times Book
Review
«To succeed in [writing these tales], as Berlioz most
brilliantly does,
requires a combination of qualities which is very rare, the
many-faceted curiosity of the dramatist with the aggressively personal
vision of the lyric poet.» -
W H Auden,
The Griffin
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 ~ Gluck ~
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 ~ Napoleon ~
 ~ Meyerbeer ~
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~CONTENTS ~
Foreword by Peter Bloom
Preface to the Phoenix Edition
by Jacques Barzun
Introduction by Jacques Barzun
~ Prologue ~
~ First Evening ~
The First Opera - Vincenza -
The Vexations of Kleiner the Elder
~ Second Evening ~
The Strolling Harpist -
The Performance of an Oratorio -
The
Sleep of the
Just
~ Third Evening ~
[Der Freischütz]
~ Fourth Evening ~
A Debut in Freischütz - Marescot
~ Fifth Evening ~
The S in Robert le diable
~ Sixth Evening ~
How a Tenor Revolves around the Public -
The Vexations of
Kleiner the
Younger
~ Seventh Evening ~
Historical and Philosophical Studies:
De viris illustribus
urbis
Romae -
A Roman Woman -
Vocabulary of the Roman Language
~ Eighth Evening ~
Romans of the New World -
Mr Barnum -
Jenny Lind's Trip to
America
~ Ninth Evening ~
The Paris Opera and
London's Opera Houses
~ Tenth Evening ~
On the Present State of Music -
The Tradition of Tack -
A
Victim of Tack
~ Eleventh Evening ~
[A Masterpiece]
~ Twelfth Evening ~
Suicide from Enthusiasm
~ Thirteenth Evening ~
Spontini, a Biographical Sketch
~ Fourteenth Evening ~
Operas off the Assembly Line -
The Problem of Beauty -
Schiller's Mary Stuart -
A Visit to Tom Thumb
~ Fifteenth Evening ~
Another Vexation of Kleiner the Elder's
~ Sixteenth Evening ~
Musical and Phrenological Studies - Nightmares -
The Puritans of Sacred Music -
Paganini
~ Seventeenth Evening ~
[The Barber of Seville]
~ Eighteenth Evening ~
Charges Leveled against
the Author's Criticism -
Analysis of The Lighthouse -
The Piano Possessed
~ Nineteenth Evening ~
[Don Giovanni]
~ Twentieth Evening ~
Historical
Gleanings:
Napoleon's Odd Susceptibility -
His Musical Judgment -
Napoleon
and Lesueur -
Napoleon and
the Republic of San Marino
~ Twenty-first Evening ~
The Study of Music
~ Twenty-second Evening ~
[Iphigenia in Tauris]
~ Twenty-third Evening ~
Gluck and
the Conservatory in Naples -
A Saying of Durante's
~ Twenty-fourth Evening ~
[Les Huguenots]
~ Twenty-fifth Evening ~
Euphonia, or the Musical City
~ Epilogue ~
The Farewell Dinner
~ Second Epilogue ~
Corsino's Letter to the Author -
The Author's Reply to Corsino
-
Beethoven and His
Three Styles -
Beethoven's Statue at Bonn -
Mébul - Conestabile
on
Paganini -
Vincent Wallace
~ Index ~
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