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. As we near the two-hundredth anniversary of Berlioz's birth, Jacques Barzun's pitch-perfect...

Hector Berlioz's Les Grotesques de la musique is the only one of his books that has never been translated into English in its entirety. It is by far the funniest of all his works, and consists of a number of short anecdotes, witticisms, open letters, and comments on the absurdities of concert life. Alastair Bruce's fluid translation brings to life this important composer and bon vivant/. He does a wonderful job of conveying all the puns, jokes, and invective of Berlioz's prose as well as the nuances of his stories. He even imitates a Tahitian accent in the translation, as Berlioz does in the...

Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise (1843) is a classic textbook by a master of the orchestra, which has not been available in English translation for over a century. This is a book by and about Berlioz, since it provides not only a new translation but also an extensive commentary on his text, dealing with the instruments of Berlioz's time and comparing his instruction with his practice. It is thus a study of the high craft of the most distinctive orchestrator of the nineteenth century.

Berlioz's dramatic work is presented here in the piano reduction by C. A. Barry that was prepared some thirty years after the premiere on April 30, 1855 at the Eglise de Ste. Eustache in Paris with a combined force of some 900 musicians, chorus and soli under the composer's direction. Barry's vocal score was reissued in a new engraving by G. Schirmer of New York early in the 20th century, which is the basis for the present digitally-enhanced reprint. With added measure numbers and careful editing to match the widely public domain available orchestral material now available, this large format...

Berlioz composed his Grand Messe des Morts, or Requiem, in 1837 for a huge orchestra with four brass choirs plus the usual vocal soli and chorus. The vocal score presented here was prepared by the Polish pianist and composer Philipp Scharwenka (1847-1917) to coincide with the issue of the full score issued as part of the Berlioz Complete Works published by Breitkopf & Hartel in the first decade of the 20th century. This digitally-enhanced reprint has been enlarged to a very readable A4 size with measure numbers added."

Berlioz composed his tremendous "Legende dramatique" in 1845-46, largely creating his own libretto after Gerard de Nerval's French translation of the famous Faust story by Goethe. The composer produced the dramatic oratorio at his own expense for the premiere on December 6, 1846 at Paris' Opera-Comique. Despite critical acclaim, the performance was not well-attended - a major financial setback for the composer. This new study score is a digitally-enhanced reprint of the score issued in 1901 by Breitkopf & Hartel as part of the projected Berlioz Complete Works, edited by Charles Malherbe and...

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) gilt als wichtiger Vertreter der Musik der Romantik in Frankreich, obwohl er sich selbst eher als klassischer Komponist verstand. Seine revolutionaren Kompositionen wurden vom zeitgenossischen Publikum kaum verstanden. So bezeichnete Wagner seine Musik als "grenzenlos langweilig." Erst lange nach seinem Tod bekamen seine Werke die wohlverdiente Anerkennung.Unter den literarischen Werken von Berlioz nehmen die vorliegenden Memoiren den ersten Rang ein. Begonnen auf englischem Boden im Revolutionsjahr 1848, vollendet 1865 in Paris, vier Jahre vor seinem Tode, umfassen...