Berlioz Roméo et Juliette

SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS

BRoméo ERLIOZ et Juliette Sasha Cooke Nicholas Phan Luca Pisaroni SFS Chorus

© San Francisco Symphony, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS music director and conductor Sasha Cooke mezzo-soprano San Francisco Symphony Chorus Nicholas Phan tenor Ragnar Bohlin chorus director Luca Pisaroni bass-baritone

HECTOR BERLIOZ (1803-1869)

Roméo et Juliette Opus 17 (1839/1846)

Part 1

I.

Introduction and Prologue

19:44

Part 2 II. Romeo Alone—Festivity at the Capulets’

13:20 18:23 08:40

III. The Capulets’ Garden—Love Scene IV. Scherzo: Queen Mab

Part 3

I. II. III. IV. V.

Second Prologue—Juliet’s Funeral Cortege 10:31 Romeo in the Tomb of the Capulets 07:47 Finale: Brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues— 01:24 —Friar Laurence’s Recitative and Aria— 11:54 —Oath of Reconciliation 05:13

Producer: Jack Vad Engineering Support: Greg Moore, Gus Pollek, Dann Thompson, Denise Woodward Post-Production: Mark Willsher I Mastering: Gus Skinas Cover Photo: Onfokus / Getty Images I Booklet Photos: Cory Weaver, Kristen Loken, Stefan Cohen All editorial materials ©2018 San Francisco Symphony. All rights reserved.

San Francisco Symphony, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA 94102

sfsmedia@sfsymphony.org

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BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette THE BACKSTORY That Hector Berlioz (18031869) was a genius there can be no doubt, though genius does not always ensure a calm passage through life. His father was a physician in a town not far from Grenoble; and since the father assumed that his son would follow in the same profession, the son’s musical inclinations were largely ignored. He was sent to Paris to attend medical school, strongly disliked the experience, and took advantage of being in the big city by enrolling in private musical studies and, beginning in 1826, the composition curriculum at the Paris Conservatory. The seal of approval for all Conservatory composition students was the Prix de Rome, and in 1830, in his fourth consecutive attempt, Berlioz was finally honored with that prize. Apart from providing a measure of recognition for his skills and a welcome source of income, the award included a residency in Italy, a nation whose ancient cultural lineage was considered to wield an indispensable influence over the formation of the creative intellect.

The fifteen months he spent there provided both inspiration and disappointment, and Berlioz ended up returning to France before his residency concluded. But what he liked about Italy would become a permanent passion; both the remnants of antiquity and the vivacity of modern Italian life left an indelible imprint

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Dramatic Symphony, Opus 17

on his taste. Depictions of Italian history, art, and landscape would surface often in his music during ensuing decades, as witness such works as the “dramatic symphony” Roméo et Juliette (1839/1846) heard here, as well as his symphony Harold in Italy and the operas Benvenuto Cellini (inspired by the autobiography of the sixteenthcentury Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and musician), Les Troyens (1856-58, after Virgil’s Aeneid, chronicling events leading to the founding of Rome), and Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-62, after Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, which is set in Italy).

Berlioz idolized the works of Shakespeare, which the Romantics viewed as reflecting their own esthetics of highly personalized expression.

Berlioz first encountered Romeo and Juliet in the theater in an eighteenth-century adaptation by David Garrick. That was in September 1827, at the Paris Odéon. The troupe performed in English, but attendees could purchase a French translation by Pierre Letourneur at the door, a version Berlioz had already studied. Playing the part of Juliet Capulet (on nights when she was not appearing as Ophelia or Desdemona) was the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, with whom the twenty-three-year-old Berlioz was immediately and irredeemably smitten. “My heart and whole being were possessed by a fierce, desperate passion in which love of the artist and of the art

were interfused, each intensifying the other,” wrote the composer in his Memoirs. (Despite the fact that he spoke no English and she no French, they would finally marry in 1833. It would be an unhappy union, and after they separated in the early 1840s, Smithson declined into alcoholism.

She died in 1854.)

One of Berlioz’s admirers was the renowned violinist Niccolò Paganini. Impressed

by Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, he approached the composer in 1834 to commission a concerto with which he could show off his newly acquired Stradivarius viola. The resulting work, Harold en Italie, was not quite what Paganini had in mind, and he declined to perform it; but when he finally heard the piece, in 1838, he was so moved that he presented Berlioz a gift of 20,000 francs. Suddenly Berlioz enjoyed a degree of financial security, and he spent most of the year 1839 reinterpreting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a symphony, “something splendid on a grand and original plan, full of passion and imagination” (as he put it). Original it surely was. Berlioz’s dramatic symphony incorporated distinct genres that did not normally intermarry any more than Capulets and Montagues did: oratorio, melodrama, operatic movements, song, and ballet, in addition to what might be considered “standard” symphonic writing. In the end this unprecedented project unrolled

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over eight movements (organized into three parts), stretching across an hour and fourtyfive minutes. These movements depict or refer to selected scenes from Shakespeare’s tale of fair Verona—or, better put, they express the composer’s representation of the emotions involved.

THE MUSIC It would have been more obvious for Berlioz to act on his Romeo and Juliet fascination by turning the play into an opera, as Charles Gounod would in 1867. But his opera Benvenuto Cellini had recently nosedived at its premiere, and it was doubtless the wrong moment to bank on another stage work. There is nonetheless a good deal that is operatic in this score, particularly in the sections that spotlight the solo singers. Berlioz roughed out the libretto by writing a prose text, adapting Shakespeare’s action considerably, after which his friend Émile Deschamps crafted the lyrics in French verse. And yet, Berlioz insisted that this was a symphony, even if it far surpassed the assumptions that term might imply to music lovers. “There can be no mistaking the genre of this work,” he wrote in a foreword to the score: Even though voices are often used, it is neither a concert opera nor a cantata, but a choral symphony.

If there is singing, almost from the beginning, it is to prepare the listener’s mind for the dramatic scenes whose feelings and passions are to be expressed by the orchestra. . . .

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[The] last scene of the reconciliation between the two families is the only one that falls into the domain of opera or oratorio. It has never been performed on any stage since Shakespeare’s time, but it is too beautiful, too musical, and it concludes a work of this nature too well for the composer to dream of treating it differently. . . .

If, in the famous garden and cemetery scenes, the dialogue of the two lovers, Juliet’s asides, and Romeo’s passionate outbursts are not sung, if the duets of love and despair are given to the orchestra, the reasons are numerous and easy to comprehend. First, and this alone would be sufficient, it is a symphony and not an opera. Second, since duets of this nature have been handled vocally a thousand times by the greatest masters, it was wise as well as unusual to attempt another means of expression. It is also because the very sublimity of this love made its depiction so dangerous for the musician that he had to give his imagination a latitude that the positive sense of the sung words would not have given him, resorting instead to instrumental language, which is richer, more varied, less precise, and by its very indefiniteness incomparably more powerful in such a case.

—James M. Keller James M. Keller is the longtime Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. © San Francisco Symphony, 2018

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The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY gave its first concerts in December 1911. Its music directors have included Henry Hadley, Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, lssay Dobrowen, Pierre Monteux, Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, and, since 1995, Michael Tilson Thomas. The SFS has won such recording awards as France’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award, Germany’s ECHO Klassik, and the United States’s Grammy. Releases on the Symphony’s own label, SFS Media, include a cycle of Mahler symphonies that has received seven Grammys, several volumes devoted to the works of Beethoven, and John Adams’s Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which won a 2013 Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance, and the 2013 ECHO Klassik. Other recent recordings on SFS Media include Grammy-nominated albums of Debussy’s Images pour orchestre and Mason Bates’s orchestral works. For RCA Red Seal, Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS have recorded scenes from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, a collection of Stravinsky ballets, and Charles Ives: An American Journey, among others.

Some of the most important conductors of the past and recent years have been guests on the SFS podium, among them Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein, and Sir Georg Solti, and the list of composers who have led the Orchestra includes Stravinsky, Ravel, Copland, and John Adams. The SFS Youth Orchestra, founded in 1980, has become known around the world, as has the SFS Chorus, heard on recordings and on the soundtracks of such films as Amadeus and Godfather III. For more than two decades, the SFS Adventures in Music program has brought music to every child in grades 1 through 5 in San Francisco’s public schools.

SFS radio broadcasts, the first in the US to feature symphonic music when they began in 1926, today carry the Orchestra’s concerts across the country. In a multimedia program designed to make classical music accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, the SFS launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV, DVD, radio, and at the website keepingscore.org. San Francisco Symphony recordings are available online and at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall.

San Francisco Symphony recordings are available at sfsymphony.org/sfsmedia.

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MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS first conducted the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and has been Music Director since 1995.

A Los Angeles native, he studied with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, becoming Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at nineteen and working with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Concerts. In 1969, Mr. Tilson Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony. Ten days later he came to international recognition, replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the BSO’s Principal Guest Conductor.

He has also served as Director of the Ojai Festival, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the London Symphony Orchestra he has served as Principal Conductor and Principal Guest Conductor; he is currently Conductor Laureate. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy.

Michael Tilson Thomas’s recorded repertory reflects interests arising from work as conductor, composer, and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts, and in 2004 he and the San Francisco Symphony launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV. Among his honors are Columbia University’s Ditson Award for services to American music and Musical America’s Musician and Conductor of the Year award. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France, was selected as Gramophone 2005 Artist of the Year, inducted to the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2015, named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2010 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Most recently, he was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters as an American Honorary Member.

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American mezzo-soprano SASHA COOKE is a graduate of Rice University and the Juilliard School of Music. A former member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she also attended the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, the Wolf Trap Foundation, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the young artist programs of Central City Opera and Seattle Opera. Ms. Cooke made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009 and became a Shenson Young Artist in 2010. She has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony several times in recent seasons, including performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Das Lied von der Erde, and staged productions of Mahler’s Das klagende Lied and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.

In previous seasons, Ms. Cooke performed the title role of Nico Muhly’s Marnie in its world premiere at English National Opera, appeared in the world premiere of Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Santa Fe Opera, and returned to a role she created, Hannah after, in Laura Kaminsky’s opera As One both at Hawaii Opera Theatre and Chautauqua Opera Company.

Notable concert appearances include the role of Goffredo in a concert version of Handel’s Rinaldo alongside the English Concert; Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas; Duruflé’s Requiem with the Dallas Symphony; Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible with the Chicago Symphony; Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic; a staged version of Verdi’s Requiem with Houston Grand Opera; and Christopher Theofanidis’s Creation/Creator with the Atlanta Symphony.

On DVD, Ms. Cooke can be seen in a new production of Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera and the Grammy Award-winning production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic under conductor Alan Gilbert. Her recordings can be found on the Hyperion, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, GPR Records, and Sono Luminus labels.

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NICHOLAS PHAN regularly performs with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies in repertory ranging from Monteverdi to Nico Muhly and beyond. He is an avid recitalist and a passionate advocate for art song and vocal chamber music; in 2010, he co-founded Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC), an organization devoted to promoting this underserved artform. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009.

Mr. Phan has appeared with many of the top orchestras in North America and Europe, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic. His many opera credits include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. In both recitals and chamber concerts, he has been presented by Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Mr. Phan’s solo albums include Illuminations, released on Avie Records in 2018; Gods and Monsters, nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album; A Painted Tale; Still Falls the Rain; and Winter Words. His growing discography also includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony, the opera L’Olimpiade with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Scarlatti’s La gloria di primavera and Handel’s Joseph and His Brethren with Philharmonia Baroque, an album of Bach’s secular cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan, Bach’s Saint John Passion (in which he sings both the Evangelist and the tenor arias) with Apollo’s Fire, and the world premiere recordings of two orchestral song cycles: The Old Burying Ground by Evan Chambers and Elliott Carter’s A Sunbeam’s Architecture.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Phan also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

© San Francisco Symphony, 2018

Italian bass-baritone LUCA PISARONI first came to international attention with his debut at age twenty-six with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, led

by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2015.

In recent seasons he has appeared as Mahomet II in Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe in his first performances at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro; made role debuts as Golaud in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande at Opéra de Paris, Mustafà in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri at the Vienna State Opera, and Don Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio at La Scala; and returned to the Metropolitan Opera stage for performances as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

Notable concert appearances include Bach’s B minor Mass with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rossini’s Stabat Mater at Vienna’s Musikverein, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle at the Vienna Konzerthaus and with the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Beethoven’s Mass in C major with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas, Handel’s Rinaldo on tour with the English Concert, and a program of orchestrated Schubert songs with the Filarmonica della Scala.

In addition to his extensive opera and concert appearances, Mr. Pisaroni has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Teatro de la Zarzuela, Ravinia Festival, the Concertgebouw, Edinburgh Festival, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Vancouver Recital Society, and the Dortmund Konzerthaus, among other international venues.

Mr. Pisaroni’s discography includes Don Giovanni and Rinaldo from the Glyndebourne Festival; Le nozze di Figaro with the Opéra National de Paris; Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le nozze di Figaro from the Salzburg Festival; and Don Giovanni with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Additional releases include Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, and the title role in Le nozze di Figaro with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

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The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY CHORUS was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director; the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, numbering thirty-two professional and more than 120 volunteer members, performs more than twenty-six concerts each season.

Louis Magor served as the Chorus’s director during its first decade. In 1982 Margaret Hillis assumed the ensemble’s leadership, and the following year Vance George was named Chorus Director, serving through 2005-06. Ragnar Bohlin assumed the position of Chorus Director in March 2007. The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed recordings, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 8 (with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting), choral works of Brahms, Mahler’s Das klagende Lied, Stravinsky’s Perséphone, selections from Berlioz’s Lélio, and John Adams’s Harmonium. The ensemble has received Grammy awards for Best Performance of a Choral Work (for Orff’s Carmina burana, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8) and Best Classical Album (for a collection of Stravinsky’s music including Perséphone, The Firebird, and Le Sacre du printemps; and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).

RAGNAR BOHLIN began his tenure as Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 2007. Mr. Bohlin served as choirmaster of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena Church and holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He studied conducting with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London, singing with Nicolai Gedda, and through a Sweden-America Foundation scholarship he visited choruses throughout the US. With Stockholm’s KFUM Chamber Choir, the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir, and the Maria Vocal Ensemble, Mr. Bohlin has won numerous prizes in international competitions. Currently teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has also taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm and been a visiting professor at Indiana University and Miami University. With the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, he has conducted J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Fauré’s Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina burana. Mr. Bohlin’s guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the São Paulo Symphony in Brazil, Malmö Symphony in Sweden, Stavanger Symphony in Norway, and the Edmonton Symphony in Canada. In fall 2016 he conducted the Ericson Chamber Choir in Mozart’s C minor Mass and in 2018 he led the BBC Singers and Swedish Radio Choir. Mr. Bohlin is the founding Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Cappella SF; the group has released three recordings on the Delos label. In 2013, he was awarded the Cultural Achievement Award from the Swedish-America Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco. In 2018, he was awarded Michael Korn Founders Award from Chorus America.

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SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS

FIRST VIOLINS

music director and conductor

Nadya Tichman

Alexander Barantschik Concertmaster Associate Concertmaster

Mark Volkert Assistant Concertmaster

Jeremy Constant Assistant Concertmaster

Mariko Smiley Melissa Kleinbart Yun Chu Sharon Grebanier Naomi Kazama Hull In Sun Jang Yukiko Kurakata Suzanne Leon Leor Maltinski Diane Nicholeris Sarn Oliver Florin Parvulescu Victor Romasevich Catherine Van Hoesen

CELLOS

OBOES

TRUMPETS

Michael Grebanier

Eugene Izotov

Mark Inouye

Principal

Principal

Principal

Principal

Helen Kim

Peter Wyrick

Christopher Gaudi

Douglas C. Carlsen

Associate Principal

Associate Principal

Acting Associate Principal

Acting Associate Principal

Paul Brancato

Amos Yang

Pamela Smith Russ deLuna

Guy Piddington Jeff Biancalana

SECOND VIOLINS Dan Carlson

Assitant Principal

Assistant Principal

Dan Nobuhiko Smiley Raushan Akhmedyarova David Chernyavsky John Chisholm Cathryn Down Darlene Gray Amy Hiraga Kum Mo Kim Kelly Leon-Pearce Eliot Lev Chunming Mo Polina Sedukh Chen Zhao

Margaret Tait Barbara Andres Barbara Bogatin Jill Rachuy Brindel Sébastien Gingras David Goldblatt Carolyn McIntosh Anne Pinsker

English Horn

BASSES

Bass Clarinet

VIOLAS Jonathan Vinocour Principal

Yun Jie Liu Associate Principal

Katie Kadarauch Assistant Principal

John Schoening Gina Cooper Nancy Ellis David Gaudry David Kim Christina King Wayne Roden Nanci Severance Adam Smyla Matthew Young

Scott Pingel

CLARINETS

TROMBONES Timothy Higgins

Carey Bell

Principal

Principal

Nicholas Platoff

Luis Baez

Associate Principal

Associate Principal

Paul Welcomer John Engelkes

David Neuman Jerome Simas

Bass Trombones

TUBA

Principal

BASSOONS

Lee Philip

Stephen Paulson

Acting Associate Principal

Principal

Stephen Tramontozzi

Steven Dibner

HARP

Assistant Principal

Associate Principal

Douglas Rioth

S. Mark Wright Charles Chandler Lee Ann Crocker Chris Gilbert Brian Marcus William Ritchen

Rob Weir Steven Braunstein

Principal

Contrabassoon

Jeffrey Anderson Principal

TIMPANI Edward Stephan

HORNS

Principal

Robert Ward Principal

FLUTES

PERCUSSION

Nicole Cash

Jacob Nissly

Tim Day

Associate Principal

Principal

Principal

Bruce Roberts

Robin McKee

Assistant Principal

Associate Principal

Jonathan Ring Jessica Valeri Jeff Garza

Raymond Froehlich Tom Hemphill James Lee Wyatt III

Linda Lukas Catherine Payne Piccolo

KEYBOARDS Robin Sutherland

MUSIC LIBRARY Margo Kieser Principal Librarian

John Campbell Assistant Librarian

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BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette LE CONTEXTE Il ne fait aucun doute qu’Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) était un génie, bien que le génie ne garantisse pas toujours une traversée calme de l’existence. Son père était médecin dans un bourg non loin de Grenoble ; et comme le père supposait que son fils s’engagerait à sa suite dans la même profession, les inclinations musicales d’Hector furent dans une large mesure ignorées. On l’envoya à Paris étudier à la faculté de médecine ; mais l’expérience lui déplut fortement, et il profita de sa présence dans la capitale pour faire des études musicales en privé et, à partir de 1826, suivre les cours de composition du Conservatoire. Le sceau d’approbation pour tout étudiant en composition du Conservatoire était le Prix de Rome, et, en 1830, lors de sa quatrième tentative consécutive, Berlioz remporta enfin ce prix. Outre qu’il était une reconnaissance de son talent et une source bienvenue de revenus, le prix lui permettait de séjourner en Italie, nation dont l’ancien héritage culturel était estimé exercer une indispensable influence sur la formation de la pensée créatrice.

Les quinze mois qu’il y passa furent source à la fois d’inspiration et de déception, et Berlioz finit par retourner en France avant le terme prévu de son séjour. Mais ce qu’il aima en Italie allait devenir une passion permanente ; les vestiges de l’antiquité et la vivacité de la vie italienne moderne laissèrent une empreinte indélébile sur

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symphonie dramatique, opus 17

son goût. Des évocations de l’histoire, de l’art et des paysages d’Italie émergeront souvent dans sa musique au cours des décennies suivantes, témoin des œuvres comme la « symphonie dramatique » Roméo et Juliette (1839/1846), entendue ici, ainsi que sa symphonie Harold en Italie et les opéras Benvenuto Cellini (inspiré par l’autobiographie du sculpteur, orfèvre et musicien italien du XVIe siècle), Les Troyens (1856-1858, d’après l’Énéide de Virgile, chroniquant les événements conduisant à la fondation de Rome), et Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-1862, d’après Beaucoup de bruit pour rien de Shakespeare, qui se passe en Italie).

Berlioz idolâtrait les œuvres de Shakespeare, dont les romantiques considéraient qu’elles reflétaient leur propre esthétique d’expression hautement personnalisée. Berlioz découvrit Roméo et Juliette au théâtre dans une adaptation du XVIIIe siècle due à David Garrick. C’était en 1827, au théâtre de l’Odéon à Paris. La troupe jouait en anglais, mais les spectateurs pouvaient acheter à l’entrée une traduction française de Pierre Letourneur – version que Berlioz avait déjà étudiée. Le rôle de Juliette Capulet était joué par l’actrice irlandaise Harriet Smithson (les soirs où elle n’incarnait pas Ophélie ou Desdémone), dont Berlioz, à vingt-trois ans, s’éprit immédiatement et irrémédiablement. « Mon cœur et tout mon

être furent envahis par une passion cruelle, acharnée, où se confondaient, en se renforçant l’un par l’autre, l’amour pour la grande artiste et l’amour du grand art », écrit le compositeur dans ses Mémoires. (Alors qu’il ne parlait pas l’anglais, pas plus qu’elle, le français, ils se marièrent finalement en 1833. Ce fut une union malheureuse, et, après leur séparation au début des années 1840, Smithson sombra dans l’alcoolisme. Elle mourut en 1854.)

L’un des admirateurs de Berlioz était le célèbre violoniste Niccolò Paganini.

Impressionné par sa Symphonie fantastique, il s’adressa au compositeur en 1834 pour lui commander un concerto qui mette en valeur l’alto Stradivarius qu’il venait d’acquérir. L’œuvre qui en résulta, Harold en Italie, n’était pas tout à fait ce que Paganini avait en tête, et il renonça à la jouer ; mais quand il l’entendit finalement en 1838, il fut si touché qu’il fit cadeau de 20 000 francs à Berlioz. Soudain Berlioz bénéficia d’une certaine sécurité financière, et il passa l’essentiel de l’année 1839 à réinterpréter Roméo et Juliette de Shakespeare pour en faire une symphonie, « une maîtresse œuvre, sur un plan neuf et vaste, une œuvre grandiose, passionnée, pleine aussi de fantaisie », comme il le dit lui-même.

L’œuvre était incontestablement originale. La symphonie dramatique de Berlioz incorporait des genres distincts qui normalement ne se

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mariaient pas plus entre eux que les Capulets et les Montaigus : l’oratorio, le mélodrame, les mouvements d’opéra, la mélodie et le ballet, outre ce qu’on pourrait considérer comme l’écriture symphonique conventionnelle. Pour finir, ce projet sans précédent se déploya en huit mouvements (organisés en trois parties), s’étendant sur une heure trente-cinq minutes.

Ces mouvements dépeignent des scènes choisies de l’histoire de la belle Vérone de Shakespeare ou y renvoient – ou plutôt expriment la représentation que s’en faisait le compositeur des émotions qui s’y jouent.

LA MUSIQUE Il aurait été plus évident pour Berlioz de réagir à sa fascination pour Roméo et Juliette en transformant la pièce en opéra, comme le fit Charles Gounod en 1867. Mais son opéra Benvenuto Cellini avait récemment été un fiasco à sa création, et c’était sans doute le mauvais moment pour miser sur une autre œuvre scénique. Il y a néanmoins beaucoup d’éléments opératiques dans cette partition, en particulier dans les sections qui mettent en avant les chanteurs solistes.

Berlioz esquissa le livret en rédigeant un texte en prose, adaptant considérablement l’action de Shakespeare, ensuite de quoi son ami Émile Deschamps le versifia. Et pourtant Berlioz soulignait qu’il s’agissait d’une symphonie, même si elle surpassait de beaucoup les implications de ce terme pour les mélomanes. « On ne se méprendra pas sans doute sur le genre de cet ouvrage », écrit-il dans la préface à la partition :

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« Bien que les voix y soient souvent employées, ce n’est ni un opéra de concert, ni une cantate, mais une symphonie avec chœurs.

Si le chant y figure presque dès le début, c’est afin de préparer l’esprit de l’auditeur aux scènes dramatiques dont les sentiments et les passions doivent être exprimées par l’orchestre. [...]

[La] dernière scène de la réconciliation des deux familles est seule du domaine de l’opéra ou de l’oratorio. Elle n’a jamais été, depuis le temps de Shakespeare, représentée sur aucun théâtre ; mais elle est trop belle, trop musicale, et elle couronne trop bien un ouvrage de la nature de celui-ci, pour que le compositeur pût songer à la traiter autrement.

Si, dans les scènes célèbres du jardin et du cimetière, le dialogue des deux amants, les apartés de Juliette et les élans passionnés de Roméo ne sont pas chantés, si enfin les duos d’amour et du désespoir sont confiés à l’orchestre, les raisons en sont nombreuses et faciles à saisir. C’est d’abord, et ce motif seul suffirait à la justification de l’auteur, parce qu’il s’agit d’une symphonie et non d’un opéra. Ensuite, les duos de cette nature ayant été traités mille fois vocalement et par les plus grands maîtres, il était prudent autant que curieux de tenter un autre mode d’expression.

C’est aussi parce que la sublimité de cet amour en rendait la peinture si dangereuse pour le musicien, qu’il a dû donner à sa

fantaisie une latitude que le sens positif des paroles chantées ne lui eût pas laissée, et recourir à la langue instrumentale, langue plus riche, plus variée, moins arrêtée, et, par son vague même, incomparablement plus puissante en pareil cas. » —James M. Keller Traduction : Dennis Collins

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BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette DIE VORGESCHICHTE Zweifelsohne war Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) ein Genie, allerdings garantiert Genie nicht immer einen ruhigen Weg durch das Leben. Sein Vater war ein Mediziner in einer Stadt nicht weit von Grenoble; und da der Vater davon ausging, dass sein Sohn ihm in diesen Beruf folgen würde, wurden dessen musikalische Neigungen weitgehend ignoriert.

Er wurde nach Paris geschickt, um Medizin zu studieren, was er zutiefst ablehnte, und nutzte seinen Aufenthalt dort, um privaten Musikunterricht zu nehmen und ab 1826 Komposition am Pariser Konservatorium zu studieren. Das Gütesiegel für alle Kompositionsstudenten des Konservatoriums war der Prix de Rome, mit dem Berlioz 1830 im vierten Anlauf ausgezeichnet wurde. Neben der Anerkennung seiner Fähigkeiten und einem willkommenen Einkommen beinhaltete die Auszeichnung eine Residenz in Italien, einem Land, dessen kulturgeschichtliches Erbe als unverzichtbarer Bestandteil zur Prägung eines kreativen Geistes betrachtet wurde.

Die fünfzehn Monate, die er dort verbrachte, boten sowohl Inspiration als auch Enttäuschung, so dass Berlioz letztlich bereits vor Abschluss der Residenz nach Frankreich zurückkehrte. Was ihm jedoch an Italien gefallen hatte, wurde zu einer dauerhaften Passion: Sowohl die historische Seite Italiens als auch

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Symphonie dramatique, Opus 17

die Lebendigkeit des modernen Lebens prägten Berlioz’ künstlerische Persönlichkeit nachhaltig.

Darstellungen der italienischen Geschichte, Kunst und Natur erschienen häufig in seiner Musik der folgenden Dekaden, wie Werke wie die in dieser Einspielung zu hörende „Symphonie dramatique“ Roméo et Juliette (1839/1846) oder seine Symphonie Harold in Italien ebenso belegen wie die Opern Benvenuto Cellini (inspiriert von der Autobiographie des italienischen Bildhauers, Goldschmiedes und Musikers aus dem 16. Jahrhundert), Les Troyens (1856-58, nach Vergils Aeneis, die von den Ereignissen im Vorfeld der Gründung Roms handelt) sowie Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-62, nach Shakespeares in Italien angesiedelter Komödie Viel Lärm um Nichts).

Berlioz verehrte das Werk Shakespeares, in dem die Romantiker ihre Ästhetik des sehr persönlichen Ausdrucks reflektiert sahen.

Berlioz begegnete Romeo und Julia erstmals in einer Adaption des 18. Jahrhunderts von David Garrick im September 1827 im Pariser Theâtre Odéon. Die Schauspieltruppe spielte auf Englisch, doch dem Publikum wurde eine französische Übersetzung von Pierre Letourneur zur Verfügung gestellt, die Berlioz bereits kannte.

Den Part von Juliet Capulet (wenn sie nicht gerade als Ophelia oder Desdemona zu sehen war) spielte die irische Schauspielerin Harriet

Smithson, in die sich der 23-jährige Berlioz sofort unwiederbringlich verliebte. „Mein Herz und mein gesamtes Wesen waren besessen von einer heftigen, verzweifelten Leidenschaft, in der sich die Liebe zur Künstlerin und zur Kunst vermischten und gegenseitig intensivierten“, schrieb der Komponist in seinen Memoiren.

Ungeachtet der Tatsache, dass er kein Englisch und sie kein Französisch sprach, heirateten sie schließlich 1833. Es wurde eine unglückliche Ehe. Nach ihrer Trennung in den frühen 1840er Jahren verfiel Smithson dem Alkohol. Sie starb 1854.

Einer von Berlioz’ Bewunderern war der Geiger Niccolò Paganini. Beeindruckt von Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, bat er den Komponisten 1834, ihm ein Konzert zu schreiben, mit dem er seine neu erworbene Stradivari-Bratsche präsentieren konnte. Das daraus folgende Werk, Harold en Italie, entsprach jedoch überhaupt nicht dem, was sich Paganini vorgestellt hatte, so dass er es ablehnte das Stück zu spielen. Als er das Werk dann 1838 endlich doch einmal hörte, war Paganini so davon beeindruckt, dass er Berlioz 20.000 Francs schenkte. Dadurch hatte Berlioz plötzlich eine gewisse finanzielle Sicherheit, so dass er 1839 die meiste Zeit damit verbrachte, Shakespeares Romeo und Julia als Symphonie neu zu deuten, „etwas Großartiges, Eindrucksvolles, voll von

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Leidenschaft und Fantasie“, wie er es ausdrückte.

Eindrucksvoll wurde die Symphonie durchaus.

Berlioz’ dramatische Symphonie verband unterschiedliche Genres, die normalerweise nicht zusammenfanden, so wenig wie die Capulets und Montagues: Oratorium, Melodram, opernhafte Sätze, Lied und Ballett sowie das, was man als „normale“ symphonische Musik bezeichnen könnte. Letztlich dehnte sich dieses beispiellose Werk über acht in drei Abschnitte gegliederte Sätze von insgesamt einer Stunde und 35 Minuten Länge. Die einzelnen Sätze beziehen sich auf ausgewählte Szenen aus Shakespeares Tragödie oder geben sie wieder – oder, besser gesagt, sie drücken die Vorstellung des Komponisten der unterschiedlichen Emotionen aus.

DIE MUSIK Es wäre für Berlioz sehr viel naheliegender gewesen, seine Faszination für Romeo und Julia in eine Oper fließen zu lassen, wie Charles Gounod es 1867 tun würde. Doch seine Oper Benvenuto Cellini war kurz zuvor bei der Premiere durchgefallen, so dass es zweifelsohne der falsche Moment für ein weiteres Bühnenwerk gewesen wäre. Trotzdem gibt es in der Partitur durchaus viele opernhafte Passagen, insbesondere, wenn die Solosänger hervortreten.

Berlioz entwarf das Libretto, indem er einen Prosatext schrieb und darin Shakespeares Handlung deutlich anpasste. Daraus fertigte sein Freund Émile Deschamps die Texte in französischen Versen. Und dennoch beharrte Berlioz darauf, dass es sich um eine Symphonie handele, selbst wenn es bei weitem das übertraf,

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was Musikliebhaber gemeinhin mit dem Begriff verbanden. „Zweifellos wird man sich über die Gattung des Werkes nicht täuschen können“, schrieb er im Vorwort zur Partitur: „Obwohl hier oft Singstimmen verwendet werden, so handelt es sich weder um eine veritable Oper noch um eine Kantate, sondern um eine Symphonie mit Chor.

Wenn es fast von Beginn an Gesang gibt, dient dieser dazu, den Zuhörer auf die dramatischen Szenen vorzubereiten, in denen Gefühle und Leidenschaften vom Orchester ausgedrückt werden. […]

[Die] letzte Szene der Versöhnung zwischen den beiden Familien ist die einzige, die in den Bereich Oper oder Oratorium fällt. Sie war seit Shakespeares Zeit auf keiner Bühne zu sehen, doch ist zu wunderbar, zu musikalisch und beschließt ein Werk dieser Art zu perfekt, als dass ein Komponist auch nur daran denken könnte, anders damit umzugehen. […]

Wenn in den berühmten Szenen im Garten und auf dem Friedhof die Dialoge der beiden Liebenden, Julias Vertraulichkeiten und Romeos leidenschaftliche Ausbrüche, nicht gesungen werden, wenn die Duette der Liebe und der Verzweiflung dem Orchester anvertraut werden, sind die Gründe dafür vielfältig, aber leicht nachzuvollziehen.

Erstens, und dies allein würde ausreichen, ist es eine Symphonie und keine Oper. Zweitens, da Duette dieser Art bereits tausendfach von den größten Meistern geschaffen wurden,

war es ebenso klug wie ungewöhnlich, eine andere Art des Ausdrucks zu wagen.

Außerdem macht die Größe dieser Liebe ihre Darstellung für den Musiker so schwierig, dass er seiner Fantasie einen Spielraum geben musste, den die positive Bedeutung der gesungenen Wörter ihm nicht gewährt hätte, und stattdessen auf die instrumentale Sprache zurückgreifen, eine Sprache, die reichhaltiger, vielfältiger, weniger festgelegt und durch ihre Unbestimmtheit in einem solchen Fall unvergleichlich viel wirkungsvoller ist.“ —James M. Keller Übersetzung: Charlotte Schneider

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© San Francisco Symphony, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS

music director and conductor

821936-0074-2 Total Playing Time: 01:44:31 All works recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall—a venue of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, City and County of San Francisco (June 28-July 1, 2017).

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