[ Berlioz music scores / Faust / Requiem / Cellini / Roméo / Ophélie / Te deum / Vox populi / Other sites ]

Louis-Hector Berlioz

Born Sunday, December 11, 1803, at La Côte-Saint-André, Isére
Died Monday, March 8, 1869, at Paris, aged 65yr 2m 25d

English version / Instant but possibly unreliable translation into French!

One of the most original composers of the 19th (or any) Century, Berlioz polarised public opinion then – and seemingly ever since – about the quality of his music. To many contemporaries who were expecting “four-square” music he lacked melody, whereas Berlioz is often profoundly melodic, using long-phrased and distinctively individual melodies. Even today Berlioz tends to inspire extremes of fanatical devotion or dread.

His orchestration was similarly criticised for being noisy and over-complex rhythmically, but today he is recognised as one of the greatest masters of orchestration and instrumentation. Berlioz was not a pianist, and although he composed reasonable piano accompaniments for his songs, his orchestral realisations are not “pianistic”. His technique similarly was scorned by later composers, yet it is usually the hallmark of an extremely individual mind employing long-breathed melodies (usually clearly audible as the top-sounding line, in the treble) supported by an expressive bass and romantic harmonies.

Born in 1803, Berlioz won early success by winning the Prix de Rome in 1830 and with the first performance of his Symphonie Fantastique in the same year. After his return from Rome he expected to write operas for the Paris Opéra, but sadly his first opera to be performed, Benvenuto Cellini, was not to the taste of the opera-going public. The exuberance and complexity of the music alienated him from the management of the Opéra, and forced to withdraw Cellini, Berlioz’s operatic career was brought to a premature end.

Berlioz was therefore forced to concentrate on symphonic, concert, and choral music, and to write newspaper reviews to support himself financially, eventually becoming embittered by the enforced servitude and failure to be accepted by the musical public of Paris.

His greatest opera, The Trojans, would therefore never be performed by the Paris Opéra whilst he lived, and in order for it to be staged at all he had to split the opera in half, the remainder of which was not performed until a decade after his death in 1869.

Berlioz stands virtually on his own, since aside from friendships with many of the German romantic composers of his era, such as Liszt, Mendelssohn and Wagner, he shared little in common with them, and wrote music completely unlike any of his contemporaries in France; he had few pupils, and founded no school of composers writing in his style, as it was too individual to easily be assimilated, although the Russian Five, Mussorgsky especially, used Berlioz as a model for orchestration.

Catalogue of works

A (somewhat complete) list of Berlioz’s works in chronological order is available here. This page contains hyperlinks to the various musical scores available as described below:

Berlioz music scores

The following Berlioz scores are viewable in a Mac OS or Windows web browser, by clicking the link marked Scorch. They are scored with the latest version of Sibelius, and therefore require the newest Scorch plug-in – if you installed Scorch before June 2000 you will certainly need the new version. If you don’t have a compatible OS, use the MIDI links where available.

The technical limitations of MIDI make it a poor substitute for real instruments (and especially in the case of vocal music, singer’s voices) but it is quite possible to follow these scores with a recording if you have one; otherwise the quality of playback will be determined by the sound card, speakers or other equipment connected to your computer.

If you own Sibelius or have a demonstration version installed (version 1.4 is preferable), you may wish to download the Sibelius files as marked, for off-line viewing and listening. In order to do this, click the link and hold down the mouse button until a contextual menu appears; you should then be able to use a menu option to download and save the linked file onto your computer.

The works on this page comprise:

H 7, Le Dépit de la Bergère
H 33, Huit Scènes de Faust, Opus 1; three of eight scenes complete
H 60, Le Captive, Opus 12; two of the six versions
H 75, Grande messe des morts, Requiem mass, Opus 5; five movements complete, two incomplete
H 76, Benvenuto Cellini, opera semi-seria, Opus 23; overture
H 79, Roméo et Juliette, dramatic symphony, Opus 17; three movements complete, and excerpts
H 92B, La mort d’Ophélie, ballad for female choir, and orchestra, Opus 18 Nº 2
H 110, Chant des chemins de fer, cantata for tenor solo, choir, and orchestra, Opus 19 Nº 3
H 114, Nessun maggiore piacere, albumleaf for voice and piano
H 118, Te deum, for three choirs, orchestra, and organ, Opus 22; all choral movements now complete!
H 120, Vox populi, two choral works with orchestra, Opus 20

The H notation refers to D. Kern Holoman’s catalogue of the musical works of Berlioz, published by Bärenreiter as volume 25 of the New Berlioz Edition. Note however, that owing to copyright the sources for the scores on this page are the Breitkopf und Härtel edition and derivative scores; the most definitive readings of Berlioz’s music are to be found in the New Berlioz Edition. Where available, these scores use Berlioz’s own metronome markings to determine the tempo (although the overture to Benvenuto Cellini departs from them markedly as the animation of the movement demands it). Please note that several of the scores here are “works in progress”, owing to the time which it takes to complete them, and are marked as incomplete or in preparation.

My general classical music page has a somewhat abbreviated listing of the scores on this page as well as some music of other composers. Also, many more Berlioz scores in Scorch format are available, courtesy of the Hector Berlioz Website:
Berlioz Music Scores and Partitions de Berlioz (version française)

Symphonies:
H 48, Symphonie fantastique
H 68, Harold en Italie, symphony for solo viola and orchestra
H 79, Roméo et Juliette, dramatic symphony, orchestral sections from movements 1–4, 6
H 80, Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, symphony for military band; chorus, strings ad libitum
Overtures:
H 23D, Grande Ouverture des Francs-Juges
H 26, Grande Ouverture de Waverley
H 53, Le Roi Lear
H 54; Intrata di Rob-Roy Macgregor
H 76B, Grande Ouverture de Benvenuto Cellini
H 95, Le carnaval romain
H 101, Le Corsaire
Other complete works:
H 88, Rêverie et caprice, romance for violin and orchestra
H 98–100, 3 Pieces for Alexandre’s melodium organ
H 103, March for the last scene of Hamlet
Arrangements:
H 90, L’invitation à la valse (Weber)
and excerpts from the following works:
H 55, Lélio, ou le retour à la vie
H 111, La damnation de Faust
H 130, L’Enfance du Christ
H 133, Les Troyens, including Royal Hunt and Storm
H 138, Béatrice et Bénédict

H 7, Le Dépit de la Bergère: romance Scorch Sibelius (15 KB)

The presence of this perhaps inconsequential romance, at the head of this page of much weightier Berlioz works, requires a little more explanation than simply being the earliest score to be written. It is indeed the first complete, extant composition that we possess of Berlioz; earlier works either were lost (e.g. the two flute quintets, of which we know only sparing details) or arrangements of other composers (e.g. the lost potpourri for flute and horn sextet, or J.-J.-B. Pollet’s Fleuve du Tage). The enterprising teen-age composer had already sent earlier romances away to publishers, but in this case he managed to get his work published – David Cairns speculates one of Berlioz’s relatives, his musical uncle Felix Marmion, may have had a hand in ensuring its publication – and this no doubt aided its survival.

There is one more significant musical claim to fame for this little romance, tentatively dated around 1819; over four decades later when Berlioz came to write his last opera, Béatrice et Bénédict, he reclaimed this tune from his memory and adapted its first eight measures into the rustic Sicilienne; with his characteristic genius it is there transposed immediately into a minor key, providing the germ for further melodic development which runs for another thirty bars before swinging back into the major. You may compare the Sicilienne by visiting the Hector Berlioz Website.

Text (The author is anonymous: is it any coincidence the romance relates the shepherdess bemoaning her swain, who forsakes her for the flageolet – the very instrument Berlioz taught himself to play as a child?)

Back to the top

H 33, Huit Scènes de Faust, Œuvre 1
4. Écot des joyeux compagnons: Histoire d’un rat	Scorch	Sibelius	(18 KB)
5. Chanson de Méphistophélès: Histoire d’une puce	Scorch	Sibelius	(24 KB)
8. Sérénade de Méphistophélès	Scorch	Sibelius	(15 KB)

Text of the Huit Scènes de Faust, by Gérard de Nerval

In the middle of 1828 Berlioz competed in the Prix de Rome for the second time, but first prize again eluded his composition, the cantata Herminie having been ajudged second place. One of the first things he did after leaving the Conservatoire was to pick up a new, unusually faithful translation of J.W. von Goethe’s Faust made by Gérard Labrunie, later known by the pen name of de Nerval.
He was immediately transfixed by the strength and musicality of the poetry, as he admitted to his longtime friend and sometime librettist, Humbert Ferrand: “I have just read the new edition of Faust... I dare not set a note, for as soon as I do, I should not stop...”
It comes as little surprise that Berlioz soon succumbed and set one of the play’s many songs, Margarita’s “chanson gothique” on the King of Thulè; and then the dam of Berlioz’s inspiration burst: the flood brought eight more settings in the next two months, of which Margarita’s romance and the soldier’s chorus were integrated so to yield with the remainder Eight Scenes from Faust. Berlioz was obliged to visit his family at La Côte-St-Andrè at the end of 1828 after several years in Paris, and took the opportunity to polish his work for publication as “Opus 1” upon his return to Paris in January 1829.
The scores were ready to be issued by the publisher in early April; Berlioz dispatched one to the aged Goethe in Weimar, accompanied by a fan letter. Goethe was impressed by the tribute from the young Frenchman and mystified by “the obviously most unusual patterns of notes running over the score”; for a technical appraisal of the music he referred the score to his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter. Unfortunately Zelter had no understanding of Berlioz’s style or technique, and fulminated in reply to Goethe:

There are some people who cannot live without marking their activity except by continual coughing, spitting, expectorating, and belching. M. Hector Berlioz appears to be one of these. The smell of sulphur that Mephistopheles gives off seems to attract him, for he sends the whole orchestra into fits of snorting and sneezing. Nevertheless I thank you for sending the score to me, as sometime I will make use of it in a lesson, as an example of gross, stillborn issue of a foul incest.

Goethe consequently never replied to Berlioz, quite possibly a factor in Berlioz’s withdrawal of the score in November 1829 and his buying up of any remaining unsold copies. By then he had attempted to perform several of the Eight Scenes with orchestra, soloists and chorus, but owing to the last-minute withdrawal of key soloists, Berlioz had to dispense with the songs of the Rat and the Flea, and Margarita’s romance. The only Scene to be performed was the Concert of Sylphes, which at the premiere was sung by six soloists instead of a chorus; whilst the orchestra played superbly, the soloists were of necessity Conservatoire students drawn from the choir, who apparently only succeeded in destroying Berlioz’s intricate vocal writing.
Berlioz’s decision to set the Eight Scenes from Faust aside is also explicable from his realisation that nowhere in the work did the play’s title character appear; it must also have been obvious to him that the work had not been conceived as an artistic unity, and was impractical to perform with disparate scorings for each scene: in the Song of the Flea Mephistopheles is a bass accompanied by string orchestra, whereas in the Serenade Mephistopheles becomes a tenor with guitar in the manner of Berlioz’s early romances; the use of many soloists and occasional chorus, the introduction of obbligato instruments (four bassoons for Brander’s grotesque Song of the Rat, viola in the King of Thulè chanson, cor anglais in Margarita’s romance) are imaginative, but it was not until 17 years later that Berlioz recast the work in a much more satisfying form, in The damnation of Faust.

Back to the top

H 60, Le Captive: orientale, Œuvre 12
A. Version I for voice and piano	Scorch	Sibelius	(15 KB)
C. Version III for voice, cello, and piano	Scorch	Sibelius	(16 KB)

Text of Le Captive, by Victor Hugo

After five years of effort in the annual Prix de Rome, the prize for musical composition awarded by the Institut de France, Berlioz pleased the judges of the contest with a conventional cantata, Sardanapale. Along with the coveted prize came its scholarship, which obliged Berlioz to travel to Italy and Germany to further his education. He found Rome most uncongenial and escaped regularly to find inspiration elsewhere: Nice, Florence, Naples, Pompeii. His trip to Subiaco yielded a mere twenty-four bars of music to the first stanza of Victor Hugo’s Le Captive (from Les Orientales). The tune proved so catchy it was soon being whistled by his fellow prize-winners at the Villa Medici, and Berlioz dedicated it to the daughter of the director of the Villa.

When Berlioz returned to Paris he quickly made another version (actually the third version it would appear!) with obbligato cello part, in which form it was performed twice and published shortly afterwards as Opus 12. Before long Berlioz orchestrated the song (the fourth version) and premiéred it in the same concert at the Conservatoire with Harold in Italy, however this first orchestration is now lost so we are unable to determine how closely it matches the piano versions. In 1848 Berlioz extensively revised and elaborated his orchestration, and this definitive fifth version was first performed in London by Pauline Viardot.

Back to the top

H 75, Grande messe des morts (Requiem), Œuvre 5
1. Requiem et Kyrie: Introitus	Scorch	Sibelius	(44 KB)
2. Dies iræ — Tuba mirum: Prose	Scorch	Sibelius	(incomplete; 51 KB)
3. Quid sum miser	Scorch	Sibelius	(14 KB)
4. Rex tremendæ
5. Quærens me	Scorch	Sibelius	(18 KB)
6. Lacrymosa	Scorch	Sibelius	(incomplete)
7. Offertorium
8. Hostias	Scorch	Sibelius	(15 KB)
9. Sanctus
10. Agnus dei	Scorch	Sibelius	(39 KB)

Text of the Grande messe des morts

The Requiem et Kyrie introduces the work with sombre and tense chromatic writing which is varied by a number of episodes. At the end of the movement the choir rhythmically chants the words of the Kyrie eleison like a litany, resulting in a huge dissonant chord at bar 195; weakened after this climax, the movement ends softly without a satisfactory feeling of resolution.

The Dies iræ is currently incomplete, but is finished up to the point where the full chorus would enter at bar 222. The movement opens with a grim motif in the cellos and basses, followed by two countermelodies which are then combined with the Dies iræ melody. A slithering modulation slides the music up a semitone and the Dies iræ is repeated with greater urgency. Another modulation sets off panic in the tenor line, and the end of this declamation and one last chromatic slide from the strings brings in the colossal fanfares from the four extra brass orchestras, which in Berlioz’s conception were to be well separated from the main orchestra at the four compass points – this is partially mimicked in stereo. Regrettably MIDI is not up to the task of faithfully reproducing the succeeding choral entry at the words Tuba mirum, accompanied by sixteen timpani and two bass drums, which in a concert should be an overwhelming moment.

In his vision of the work Berlioz juxtaposes moments of quiet reflection against huge panoplies of sound, and the inner movements of Quid sum miser and Quærens me perform this contrast by use of reduced forces and hushed dynamics; the former quotes the sparse opening of the Dies iræ whilst the latter is for choir singing alone.

The Lacrymosa is an apocalyptic movement in a somewhat off-beat 9/8 metre, which is only let down by the contrasting section which relaxes the tension in rather Rossinian style. Currently only complete to bar 59 (of about 203 in total).

The Hostias is one of Berlioz’s strangest inventions, with each of the phrases sung by the choir being echoed by an unearthly chord sounding on three (heavenly) flutes and the (infernal) pedal notes of eight trombones in unison; I have been able to tweak the tuning of the chorus so that it approaches just intonation (something it is rare to hear in a real choir).

The Agnus dei repeats music from the Hostias, the Requiem et Kyrie and Rex tremendae before closing with a marvellously scored series of Amens for arpeggiated strings and the full brace of trombones and timpani.

It is my intention to eventually score the entire Requiem; my intended order of completion is by numbers: after 2 and 6, then 4, 7, and 9.

Back to the top

H 76, Benvenuto Cellini, Œuvre 23
Grande Ouverture de Benvenuto Cellini	Scorch	Sibelius	(147 KB)	MIDI	(228 KB)

Berlioz said of his first opera that the overture was extravagantly applauded, while the rest was hissed with exemplary precision and energy. Here is more information regarding the score of the overture, one of Berlioz’s most complicated works.

Back to the top

H 79, Roméo et Juliette, symphonie dramatique avec chœurs, Œuvre 17
1. Introduction: Combats — Tumulte	Scorch	Sibelius	(39 KB)	MIDI	(64 KB)
Prologue (in preparation)	Scorch	Sibelius	(21 KB)
Strophes	Scorch	Sibelius	(21 KB)
Scherzetto	Scorch	Sibelius	(28 KB)
2. Roméo seul — Grande Fête chez Capulet	Scorch	Sibelius	(105 KB)
3. Nuit sereine —	Scorch	Sibelius	(19 KB)
Scène d’amour (see the Hector Berlioz Website’s scores pages in English and French) 4. La Reine Mab, ou la fée des songes. Scherzo (see the Hector Berlioz Website’s scores pages in English and French) 5. Convoi funèbre de Juliette
6. Roméo au tombeau des Capulets	Scorch	Sibelius	(48 KB)
7. Final

Text of the Symphony, by Émile Deschamps

The first of these sections from Berlioz’s choral symphony based on Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is the stormy fugal introduction, depicting the riot quelled by the intervention of the Prince. The fugato gathers momentum with irregular entries of the theme and eventually is halted by a massive discord and the entry of the Prince, depicted by monophonic brass recitative which quadruply augments the original fugue. The recitative reaches a decisive cadence after which the fugato returns, but so weakened it slowly disappears to nothing.

After this introduction Berlioz introduced a prologue sung in harmonic recitative by a small choir of fourteen voices, to outline the drama of his symphony; it includes two short and lovely diversions for solo contralto (Strophes) and tenor (the Scherzetto), each with reduced scoring. The Strophes is refutation enough that Berlioz could only compose with bombast and without melody; in the second verse the accompaniment is varied with solo cellos which delicately counterpoint the contralto’s serene melody, and the Scherzetto is strikingly orchestrated while galloping through a paraphrase of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech.

The second orchestral movement which follows depicts Romeo’s wandering and erotic yearning, before hearing in the distance a concert (with a beautiful melody entrusted to solo oboe, presumably to be associated with Romeo seeing Juliet for the first time) and then the brilliant ball music of Capulet’s party. The energetic theme of the Allegro is a vigourous dance which in David Cairn’s words “seems both to whirl forward and to remain in the same place”. In proud fashion Berlioz combines these two themes halfway through the movement; however, the appearance of a melody associated with the hero’s beloved one in the middle of a ball and overtly influencing its music, is exactly what happens in the middle of the second movement of the Symphonie fantastique. A curious fugue then begins in the bassoons, (this was originally associated with the character of Tybalt) however this threat is dispelled by a crescendo which develops over a mysterious descending scale repeated in the bass; the movement ends in high spirits with brief recollections of the ball theme, the Juliet melody, and at the last minute, the ominous descending scale.

Before the Scène d’amour (No. 3 proper) there is a quiet depiction of the garden below Juliet’s balcony, broken by the singing of the young Capulets (two off-stage men’s choirs) as they stagger home from the ball, first in the distance, then passing by, and fading away to nothing before the first chord of the Adagio.

Berlioz’s depiction of the tomb scene (No. 6) requires some explanation for its chaotic (and strikingly modern) music. Although the score is divided into three sections in terms of tempo (fast-slow-fast) there is much use of pauses which as far as the listener is concerned, break the music into a series of discrete fragments.

The score is Berlioz’s most extreme journey into programmatic depiction. In Shakespeare’s version of this scene, Romeo arrives at the Capulets’ tomb, where he kills Paris in combat. Discovering Juliet apparently dead, Romeo utters a long lament, then takes poison and dies instantly. Friar Laurence arrives to find his body and that of Paris, when Juliet revives from his potion. Rather than flee with the Friar before the morning watch, Juliet at first tries to take poison from Romeo’s lips with a kiss; then she takes a dagger from his body, stabs herself and dies. However Berlioz’s composition was heavily influenced by the version he had seen acted by Charles Kemble and Harriet Smithson in 1827, which had been rewritten by the 18th century actor David Garrick to have Juliet awaken from her death-like sleep before Romeo’s death from (a much slower acting) poison. Thus a brief synopsis of what Berlioz imagined the movement depicted might read like the following:

Back to the top

H 92B, La mort d’Ophélie: ballade. Œuvre 18 No. 2

Scorch

Sibelius

(38 KB)

Text of the ballad by Ernest Legouvé

...

Back to the top

H 110, Chant des Chemins de fer, Œuvre 19 No. 3

Scorch

Sibelius

(68 KB)

This score of Berlioz's infrequently performed railway cantata is now complete. Part of my work in preparing this score was done whilst travelling on various Melbourne trains – quite appropriately, since the composition of the cantata was commissioned for the opening of the Lille railway, where it was first performed on June 14 1846.

Text of the cantata, by Jules Janin

Back to the top

H 114, Nessun maggior piacere

Scorch

Sibelius

(12 KB)

MIDI

(2 KB)

A single albumleaf for voice and piano – and as utterly different from the other scores as can be imagined. Berlioz’s text rephrases a verse of Dante Alighieri’s.

Back to the top

H 118, Te deum, Œuvre 22
1. Te Deum laudamus: Hymne	Scorch	Sibelius	(51 KB)
2. Tibi omnes: Hymne	Scorch	Sibelius	(51 KB)
[Prélude] (see the Hector Berlioz Website’s scores pages in English and French) Marche pour la présentation des drapeaux (see the Hector Berlioz Website’s scores pages in English and French)
3. Dignare: Prière	Scorch	Sibelius	(33 KB)
4. Christe, rex gloriæ: Hymne	Scorch	Sibelius	(59 KB)
5. Te ergo quæsumus: Prière	Scorch	Sibelius	(33 KB)
6. Judex crederis: Hymne et Prière	Scorch	Sibelius	(96 KB)	MIDI	(216 KB)

Text and notes regarding the Te deum

The Te deum is one of the last of Berlioz’s “architectural” works, composed in 1848–49, in which massed instrumental and vocal forces are deployed by the composer like an army in order to exploit alternately colossal and intimate sonorities in a vast, spacious acoustic. Berlioz envisaged the orchestra would take the central position in a large church, with the two large mixed-voice choirs antiphonally placed in the transepts, and the great organ placed at the far end of the church. A third choir of children’s voices, as large as possible, would be placed on platforms close to the orchestra. The musical dialogue between the orchestra (“the Emperor”) and the organ (“the Pope”) would thus resound from one end of the church to another.

As he had done in the Grande messe des morts, Berlioz at times arbitrarily re-orders the traditional text of the Te Deum in order to increase its dramatic possibilities; the six choral movements that result from this re-arrangement are described as either “hymns” or “prayers”, and the climactic Judex crederis contains elements of each. There are also two additional instrumental pieces of martial character (the Prélude and Marche), which are currently available in Scorch format at the Hector Berlioz Website’s scores page.

The second movement, the Tibi omnes, was heard by over half the world’s population at the climax of the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic games on September 15 2000, as the torch was carried into Stadium Australia and the cauldron lit by Cathy Freeman. I would like to acknowledge the use of Phillip Rutherford’s arrangement which has proved invaluable in preparing this score.

On a technical note: in creating these Sibelius files, it is unfortunately impossible to reproduce the quadraphonic effect of Berlioz’s intentions in mere stereo; the two mixed choirs are separated in left and right channels, and the orchestra, organ, children’s choir are sonically in the middle by being balanced in both channels. In the Judex crederis Berlioz superimposes 9/8 and 3/4 metres, with the consequence that some string tremelos have had to be notated in full.

Back to the top

H 120, Vox populi, Œuvre 20
1. La menace des Francs: marche et chœur	Scorch	Sibelius	(39 KB)
2. Hymne à la France	Scorch	Sibelius	(53 KB)

Text of Vox populi

The Hymne was composed first, for Berlioz’s Paris concerts in 1844, and sets four strophic verses of a patriotic text by Auguste Barbier, with impressive and varied accompaniments for each verse, a technique Berlioz was to use notably in the Tibi omnes (see above). Each verse ends with the stirring refrain, “God, protect France!”. The last verse is grandly scored for full orchestra and the meter changed from triple to duple time.
Of the other work, La menace des Francs, Hugh Macdonald has said that it was “[c]omposed at an unknown date before 1848 for an unknown purpose to words by an unknown author”! There is a small part for a male quartet or semi-chorus, but otherwise Berlioz has taken little trouble to vary the accompaniment where the text is repeated, and he frequently doubles the soprano and tenor parts in octaves.

Back to the top

Lastly, here are two fragments of score showing Berlioz’s love for polyrhythms (two or more instruments playing in different metres). In the Chasse royale et orage Berlioz sets up a tempestuous clashing of duple (2/2), triple (3/4), and compound (6/8) metres; in the third movement of Harold en Italie he plays with two different tempi, whilst simultaneously augmenting one of the themes in the slower tempo.

Back to the top

Sites elsewhere on the Internet

The Hector Berlioz Website : this is currently the best Internet resource for information regarding every aspect of the composer. The site includes extremely impressive “sister sites” which include Sibelius scores of Berlioz’s music, a site dedicated to his birthplace, as well as pictures of Berlioz and his family, and a gallery of paintings which provided inspiration for his works. With the exception of some minor works and arrangements, the scores page includes almost all of Berlioz’s instrumental and orchestral music.

The Complete Berlioz : Works database maintained by ...

D. Kern Holoman, author of the catalogue of works published as volume 25 of the New Berlioz Edition (Bärenreiter).

Catalogue des oeuvres : another web catalogue of Berlioz’s works, which is heavily indebted to Holoman’s pioneering work. It has a different set of information (mostly in French) but there are a number of data which aren’t correct.

Phillip Rutherford’s Berlioz Shrine : another Australian site, this has several essays from the pages of 24 Hours, the Australian equivalent of the Radio Times for the national classical radio station ABC Classic FM. There is also a chat forum where you can exchange views with other Berlioz lovers world-wide!

Berlioz2003.com : The official site of the bicentenary organising committee (this site is bilingual). This ties into the Orchestre de Paris’ programme of concerts scheduled for 2003 (in French).

Le feuilleton fantastique d’Hector Berlioz : a site devoted to a single work – the Requiem; its author has published his 1983 Master’s thesis on the Grande messe des morts in html form on the web, and compares between thirty-nine different recordings of the work he owns!

“FaustTiger”’s World of Hector Berlioz : a mysterious Berlioz fan who adores the Symphonie fantastique and tigers. Also has some MIDI files of variable quality (also on the CMA, linked below).

Hector Berlioz : another site which concentrates on the Symphonie fantastique.

Homepage for Mu123 – Hector Berlioz: A CalTech student’s assignment page devoted to Berlioz.

Musée Hector Berlioz - a new site for the Museum in Berlioz’s home town of La Côte-Saint-André; very graphics intensive (and in French).

Classical Music Archives: B : scroll down this page to find Berlioz, who is currently represented by a couple of dozen MIDI files here; the movements from Harold en Italie are very good; certain others are execrable, I am afraid to say!

Choral Public Domain Library : a large collection of choral music available for free download and use, maintained by Rafael Ornes. Eventually this site will include PDF versions of the choral scores found here, for free distribution and use.

Back to the top

Go to my classical music page

The scores and text on this page are © copyright Philip Legge 2000–01. All rights reserved.

Comments, suggestions, requests? Please e-mail me, but remember to replace the capital letters in the address with the appropriate characters.

Last update, GC 2001-12-26: Text added for Huit Scenes de Faust.