Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie, I

Berlioz, Hector, 1803-1869Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
454K words
Chapters
46

Tags

English Originals Music Human GeographyTravel GuideBeautiful EssaysExotic CultureCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie, I by Hector BerliozAuthor: Berlioz, Hector, 1803-1869,Language: French, Class: ML: Music: Literature of music, Release Date: Aug 26, 2010

Editor's review

This is the first volume of Berlioz's musical travelogue, written in French and recording his observations and reflections in Germany and Italy. A composer and critic, Berlioz writes with both immediacy and judgment, describing performances, theatres, and musical life while interspersing evaluations of works and playing. For Chinese readers it is at once a first-hand source on nineteenth-century European musical life and collateral evidence for understanding Berlioz's aesthetic ideas. The book is information-dense, with frequent place names, personal names, and work titles, and is suited to slow reading alongside searches for the music discussed. As reading context, it works as supplementary reading for music history courses, or for classical music lovers to consult while listening to the relevant works; those seeking light travel writing should adjust their expectations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Skim the table of contents first to locate chapters on cities or composers, then read by interest.
  2. Look up recordings of the works mentioned while reading, listening and comparing with the text.
  3. Prepare a glossary of place and personal names to reduce interruptions from frequent pauses.
  4. After each chapter, write a few lines of summary to sort out Berlioz's concerns and criteria of judgment.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or French? Is it hard to read? The original is in French and it is a public-domain ebook. Without French you will need a dictionary or translation tools; the many proper names and musical terms add difficulty, so start with chapters on composers or cities you already know.
Can I read it without a music background? Yes, but some preparation helps. The book deals with performances, theatres and evaluations of works, and without background it is easy to lose the thread. Read it alongside an introductory music history book and recordings of the works, treating it as observational material rather than a systematic textbook.
How is it different from an ordinary travelogue? Its focus is not scenery and itineraries but musical life, performance observations and artistic judgment. Berlioz records what he hears and sees with a composer's eye; the material is fairly specialized and better suited to readers interested in music history and critical writing.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Berlioz, Hector, 1803-1869 Author

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was an important French composer and music critic of the Romantic era. Twelve of his works are held in this collection, spanning memoirs, correspondence, music criticism, and writings on conducting. Among them, the Mémoires record his artistic career and the musical life of his time in autobiographical form; essay collections such as A travers chants, Les musiciens et la musique, and Les soirées de l'orchestre display his keen musical judgment and distinctive critical style, written with vividness and strong personal character. Le chef d'orchestre: théorie de son art sets out his theory of conducting, while Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie records his travels, and the unedited correspondence reveals his private writing. Public information is limited, but these works show a writer who combines a composer's professional perspective with a literary expressiveness, and they have had a lasting influence on music criticism and music theory.