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It was in March 1998 that we first visited La Côte-Saint-André and Berlioz’s family home, which houses the Hector-Berlioz Museum. The result of that visit was the creation of a new illustrated page devoted to La Côte-Saint-André on the Berlioz website we had launched the previous year; since then this page has been considerably enlarged.
At the time of our first visit the Museum was not yet under the direction of Chantal Spillemaecker and Antoine Troncy; they were appointed not longer after, and it is thanks to their inspiration and initiative that the Museum has subsequently developed and expanded to reach its present eminent status. Not only does it house a unique and constantly growing collection of everything related to the composer and his family, it has also become a centre for Berlioz studies visited by students and scholars from around the world.
By the time of our next visit to La Côte in 2008, ten years later, we had started to correspond with Chantal Spillemaecker and Antoine Troncy who took the initiative in contacting us; relations have since blossomed into a fruitful and rewarding collaboration, and we have never looked back. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for having welcomed us at the Museum and made available for study and publication on the Berlioz website the priceless treasures of the Museum’s collections.
From the Museum’s collections
The following lists the most important items from the Museum’s collections that we have been able to utilise and illustrate on our website:
2012
- The original programme of the large concert given by Berlioz for the Festival de l’Industrie on 1 August 1844
- An autograph document by the conductor Felix Weingartner dated 17 August 1903, in which he donates to Berlioz’s family home — which later became the Hector Berlioz Museum — the crown he had placed on the statue of Berlioz in Grenoble at the centenary celebrations of the composer’s birth
2013
- Concert programmes of music by Berlioz from the Concerts Colonne between 1878 and 1908
- An autograph letter of Édouard Alexandre, one of the testamentary executors of Berlioz, to the conductor Édouard Colonne, 20 May 1877
- An autograph letter of Édouard Colonne to the Mayor of La Côte-Saint-André, 20 July 1890
- The programme of the concert of 1 March 1908 at the Paris Conservatoire
- An autograph letter of Ernest Rollin to the Mayor of La Côte-Saint-André, 23 June 1881
- Autograph letters of Georges de Massougnes, 1881 — ca 1900
- Two autograph letters of Henri Chapot to Édouard Colonne and of Édouard Colonne to Georges de Massougnes, 23 and 30 September 1896
- The programme of the concert at the Concerts Colonne on 18 March 1894 conducted by Felix Mottl
2014
- (11 December) Publication at the invitation of the Museum of the more than 200 letters of members of Berlioz’s family housed by the Museum (his grandfather, father and mother, uncle and aunt, his two wives, his two sisters and their husbands, two of his nieces) and a few other related texts. The publication includes a full listing of all the documents, both literal and edited transcriptions of the originals, discussions of chronology, commentary, a selection of reproductions of the originals, and a dedicated search function. The transcription had been carried out on the spot at the invitation of the Museum in a series of visits to La Côte between 2011 and 2014.
2015
- Chronological table of the more than 400 autograph letters of Berlioz housed in the Museum, together with a companion page on the role of Berlioz’s sister Adèle and her elder daughter Joséphine in preserving the letters that form the largest part of this collection
2017
- The page on the Société Philharmonique, 1850-1851 and its companion page of texts utilise unpublished documents at the Museum concerning the history of the Society, notably the minutes of the meetings of the committee of the Society, and other manuscript sources of Berlioz himself
2018
Donations to the Museum
The following is a list of the donations we have made to the Museum since 2009:
2009
2010
- A medal with a portrait of Tchaikovsky for the exhibition Berlioz en Russie
2011
2012
- Dissertation sur les Effets du Fluide Électrique introduit dans l’économie animale, attributed (probably incorrectly) to Dr Louis Berlioz, the father of the composer, 16 May 1800
- First edition of the piano score of l’Enfance du Christ (1855)
- Roméo et Juliette, piano score by Théodore Ritter (1858)
- 25 engravings of the 19th century, ranging in date between 1819 and 1880, for the exhibition Berlioz et l’Italie. Voyage musical, all reproduced in the Catalogue of the exhibition. On the exhibition see the report in Le Dauphiné Libéré
- Two articles on Berlioz and Italy were contributed by Michel Austin to the Catalogue of the exhibition Berlioz et l’Italie. Voyage musical, which have since been reproduced on this site
- Bust of Berlioz by the early 20th C. Russian artist Samuel Markitante
2013
- An engraving by Henri Fanton-Latour for the exhibition Richard Wagner, La légende orchestrée
2014
- Original programmes of concerts given by Berlioz in Leipzig in 1843 (4 February and 22 February) and 1853 (1 December and 10 December)
- The digitisation of a large number of letters in the Reboul collection of letters in the Museum was financed by us
- A large collection of over 300 concert programmes which include music by Berlioz, ranging from 1861 to 1949. Of these, 10 programmes of music by Berlioz performed in the United States between 1861 and 1886 have been included in the page Berlioz and the Americas (published on 1 December 2018), and further programmes have been included in the page Berlioz and the Americas — Concert programmes of the 20th century (published on 1 January 2019)
2015
- A portrait of Harriet Smithson by George Clint, ca. 1825-1830
2016
- An autograph text of Berlioz listing his income for the year 1866
- An autograph letter of Nancy Berlioz to her brother Hector, 26 March 1827
- An engraving of the statue of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini for the exhibition Benvenuto Cellini, une orfèvrerie musicale
2017
For the 2017 exhibition on Berlioz à Londres, au temps des Expositions universelles we have donated a large number of items, a number of which are illustrated on this site; items donated include:
- 9 contemporary journals concerning the Great Exhibition of 1851, including 8 issues of The Illustrated London News and one of L’Illustration
- 5 engravings of 1851 illustrating the Exhibition, and 11 of between 1828 and 1854 illustrating various monuments and venues in London
- Over a dozen images concerning the Great Exhibition and various monuments and venues in London, from books and journals dating between 1843 and 1878
- Engraved portraits of Shakespeare (1747), Thomas Moore (ca. 1832) and Lord Byron (1835)
- Editions of Byron, Childe Harold and The Corsair (1817), Childe Harold (1845), and Le Corsaire (1892)
- M. de Lescure, Lord Byron – Histoire d’un homme (1788-1824) (Paris, 1866)
- Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies (1825)
- Medals commemorating the Great Exhibition and other memorabilia
2018
Our Berlioz collection and its future
Over the years we have built up a collection of Berlioz-related material which ranges from the 19th century to the present day, and comprises autograph letters, musical scores and books, contemporary and later journals, numerous engravings and images, postcards, a very large number of concert programmes from the 19th to the early 21st C (including several signed by Colin Davis), medals and other memorabilia, as well as recordings on LP, CD, and DVD. We have compiled and kept up to date a detailed inventory of our collection, of which the Museum has a copy.
We have made extensive use of items in our collection on the website. In addition to those listed in the section above, examples include:
- A transcription of Berlioz’s account of his trip to Russia of 1847 which he first published in the Magasin des Demoiselles in 1855 and 1856
- A transcription of Berlioz’s complete Mémoires d’un musicien which he first published in Le Monde illustré of 1858 and 1859 and later incorporated in his posthumous Mémoires
- Numerous contemporary articles and reviews, notably from Le Charivari, Le Siècle, the Journal des Débats, Le Figaro, Le Journal amusant, Le Monde illustré, Le Voleur, L’Illustration, The Illustrated London News, Le Journal illustré, L’Univers illustré, the Revue et gazette musicale, the Revue Pittoresque, and others
- Medals of honour awarded to the instrument makers Alexandre père et fils at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris, and portrait medals of the emperor Napoleon III and the empress Eugénie
- Illustrations of the careers of Édouard Colonne, Hamilton Harty, Felix Mottl, Jules Pasdeloup, and Felix Weingartner, among other leading champions of Berlioz
- The prospectus for the launching in January 1903 of the edition by Breitkopf and Härtel of the musical works of Berlioz
- Very numerous illustrations of buildings, venues, cities and landscapes associated with Berlioz’s career and travels, in Paris, France (notably Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Plombières and Strasbourg), Rome and Italy, Germany (notably Baden-Baden, Berlin, Dresden, Hanover, Leipzig, Prague, and Weimar), Russia, and London (including the 1851 Exhibition)
- A large number of miscellaneous memorabilia of the 19th century and later — postcards, busts and statuettes, coins, stamps, medals, plates, concert programmes, posters, and other objects
- A collection of original arts postcards inspired by Berlioz, by the French artist Jihel
Among items of particular interest, in addition to those mentioned above, may be mentioned the first editions of Les Soirées de l’orchestre (1852), Les Grotesques de la musique (1859), À Travers chants (1862), the Mémoires (1870; two copies); the first edition (vol. 2 only) of the Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie (1844); the first issue of the second edition of the Grand Traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (1855), the first editions of the full score of Harold en Italie (1848) and of the Marche troyenne (1865), and the first editions of the vocal scores of Weber’s Der Freischütz with Berlioz’s recitatives (1843), La Damnation de Faust (1854), and La Prise de Troie (1863).
A number of items have already been donated by us to the Museum from 2009 onwards. More will follow in coming years, and in any case it is our intention to bequeathe our entire Berlioz collection to the Museum which does so much to preserve and promote the memory of the
great French composer, and which is appropriately located in the family home and in the town
in which he was born.
Reception at Grenoble on 11 December 2009
From left to right: Antoine Troncy, Assistant de Conservation at the Hector Berlioz Museum,
Chantal Spillemaecker, Conservateur at the Hector Berlioz Museum, Monir Tayeb,
Claude Bertrand, vice-président chargé de la culture et du patrimoine, and Michel Austin
(photo © Conseil général de l’Isère).
Inauguration of the exhibition on Berlioz and Italy, 29 June 2012
From left to right: Chantal Spillemaecker, Conservateur at the Hector Berlioz Museum,
Monir Tayeb, André Vallini, Président du Conseil général de l’Isère and sénateur de l’Isère, Michel Austin
© 2012 Le Dauphiné Libéré
At the Hector Berlioz Museum, 22 March 2013
From left to right: Manon Maire, Antoine Troncy, Chantal Spillemaecker, Michel Austin, Monir Tayeb
At the Hector Berlioz Museum, August 2013
Michel Austin at the Hector Berlioz Museum
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