{"id":1892,"date":"2014-05-21T15:35:54","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T19:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2014-12-05T17:11:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T22:11:40","slug":"newly-digitized-berlioz-vocal-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/2014\/05\/21\/newly-digitized-berlioz-vocal-scores\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly Digitized: Berlioz Vocal Scores"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It was Virgil who first found the way to my heart and opened my budding imagination,\u00a0by speaking to me of the epic passions for which instinct had prepared me,” wrote Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), recalling his reluctant childhood studies of classics (Memoirs<\/em><\/a>, trans. Cairns, 35). Once kindled, his enthusiasm for Vergil was life-long, and at the urging of Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, Berlioz began work in 1856 on an opera based on the second and fourth books of the Aeneid<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\"Hector<\/a>

Hector Berlioz, Title page, La Prise de Troie. Merritt Room Mus 628.3.651.1 PHI (click to enlarge)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Berlioz conceived Les Troyens<\/em> as one opera, but was forced to divide it into two parts for performance at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre-Lyrique when the Paris Op\u00e9ra refused the work after years of delay (vividly recounted in his correspondence).\u00a0As noted in the front matter<\/a> of the vocal score, a full production without cuts would take 206 minutes to perform; with 15-minute intermissions, a 7:30 curtain meant the opera would finish 4 minutes before midnight, not allowing for applause and curtain calls (with substantial cuts, the run time could be reduced to a less daunting 140 minutes, or about 3 hours, 45 minutes total).\u00a0Acts III-V, heavily cut and revised, premiered as Les Troyens \u00e0 C<\/em>arthage <\/em><\/em>on November 4, 1863. La Prise de Troie<\/em> (originally Acts I-II of Les Troyens<\/em>) was not performed during Berlioz’s lifetime, and a staged production premiered only in 1890. The five-act Les Troyens<\/em> was not staged until the 20th century, and an uncut version not until the centenary of Berlioz’s death in 1969.<\/p>\n

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\"Hector<\/a>

Hector Berlioz, Title page, Les Troyens \u00e0 Carthage . Merritt Room Mus 628.3.654 PHI (click to enlarge)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In addition to autograph and copyist manuscripts, the original version of\u00a0Les Troyens<\/em> survives in a few proof and presentation scores dating to the early 1860s. Antoine Choudens published vocal scores of La Prise de Troie<\/em> and Les Troyens<\/em> in 1863, and in 1889 reassembled a complete Les Troyens<\/em> from the plates engraved for those editions. Choudens’ numerous issues of Les Troyens \u00e0 Carthage<\/em> reflect the cuts and revisions made under L\u00e9on Carvalho’s direction for the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre-Lyrique, a trial that Berlioz described\u00a0with unconcealed disgust: “But oh, the agony of seeing a work of this kind laid out for sale with the scars of the publisher’s surgery upon it! A score lying dismembered in the window of a music shop like the carcass of a calf on a butcher’s stall, and pieces cut off and sold like lights for the concierge’s cat!” (Memoirs <\/em>491).<\/p>\n