Berlioz - Tremendous Fiction Author
Has anyone here read "Evenings With the Orchestra", by Hector Berlioz? It's a remarkable novel. More on it in a minute...
You may know Berlioz earned a steady income by writing music critiques, some several-odd hundreds, or even thousands of them. Also that he wrote a book on instrumentation called "Treatise on Instrumentation", a book that explained his views on the various instruments of the orchestra, what they could best express, how to best utilize them, etc. - Berlioz was well equipped to write such a book, considering how well acquainted with the subject he was; he had a practical and intuitive understanding of an orchestra's instruments and their interrelationships. From his Treatise: "The violins posses force, lightness, accents both gloomy and gay... they are faithful, intelligent, active and indefatigable servants, sure never to be out of breath. -- The oboe shows timidity, the clarinet tartness. The horn in melancholy, the trumpet lofty, and the bassoon is absolutely devoid of nobleness." - I've italicized the last line because I think it well shows how he effectively used humor in his writings, even if he was writing a serious work.
Richard Strauss, no slouch at orchestration himself, decades later revised the Treatise. He found almost nothing to change and surprisingly little to add.
Around the same time that Berlioz wrote the Treatise, he also wrote a work of fiction entitled "Euphonia", a satire about a musical utopia. It's a book I would love to read, but I can't find an English-translation edition. Does anyone know if one exists?
Given his long experience as a writer, it shouldn't be a surprise that he developed talent for it. What is surprising to me, however, is how masterful his fiction actually is. In my opinion,"Evenings With the Orchestra" would be enough to cement a legacy all by itself. It's terribly clever and consistently funny throughout. Because the book consists of back-stage-type conversations of idle performers, a large variation of tales and anecdotes are told, many of which are completely unrelated to music. It's a book of very loosely related vignettes.
The book takes place over 25 nights while a bored orchestra sits waiting to perform, or awaiting the conclusion of an opera, and therefore entertains themselves with hilarious discourse. Highly recommended. It's perhaps, at least in my recent memory, one of the best little-known works of fiction I've read. I'm ready to proclaim its author a more interesting author than composer.
Will Hays is my shepherd, I shall not want. Wills prod and Will's gaff, they confound me.