Concerts and performances 1825-1869

Contents of this page

Introduction 
Berlioz the conductor 
Table of concerts and performances 1825-1869

This page is also available in French

See also Concerts and performances 1825-1869 — texts and documents

Abbreviations

CG = Correspondance générale (8 volumes, 1972-2003)
CM = Critique musicale (10 volumes, 1996-2020)
NL = Nouvelles lettres de Berlioz, de sa famille, de ses contemporains (2016)
H followed by a number = number of a work of Berlioz in Holoman’s Catalogue
Holoman Catalogue = D. Kern Holoman, Catalogue of the Works of Hector Berlioz (1987)
Tiersot  = Julien Tiersot ‘Berlioz directeur de concerts symphoniques’, Le Ménestrel 1909-1910

Introduction

    This page pursues two aims at once. It lists all the performances of Berlioz’s music that are known to have been given in Paris in the lifetime of the composer, and it lists at the same time all the concerts in Paris which Berlioz conducted himself. It would have been possible to present two separate lists for each category, but this would have led in practice to unnecessary repetition and duplication. Starting from the end of 1835 the vast majority of performances of Berlioz’s music in Paris were conducted by the composer himself, for reasons that will be examined in more detail below, and the majority of concerts conducted by Berlioz in Paris included at least some of his own music.

    The material on this page is arranged year by year in a series of chronological tables; each table lists the date of the performance or concert, the work or works performed (where possible in the order in which they were performed at the concert) together with the soloists involved (singers or instrumentalists), the venue (concert hall, opera house, or church), the conductor, and finally references mostly to relevant contemporary sources, many of them with links to the original texts in English translation or in the original French (all English translations on this site are by Michel Austin). After each table will be found where required supplementary notes on particular concerts. All the concerts conducted by Berlioz himself are prefixed with an *asterisk, which shows that from 1836 onwards down to 1859 the vast majority of concerts or performances listed were conducted by Berlioz himself, with the exception of the Requiem in 1837 and Benvenuto Cellini in 1838 and 1839. In the 1860s the number of concerts dwindles considerably as does Berlioz’s direct part in them, and he was not allowed to conduct any of the performances of Les Troyens in 1863.

    In listing the works performed at any given concert, the following principles have been followed:

• Works of Berlioz are listed without mention of his name (e.g. ‘Symphonie fantastique’ and not ‘Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique’), whereas in all other cases the name of the composer is mentioned as well as that of the work performed (e.g. ‘Mozart, Ave verum’).
• Where the concert was not conducted by Berlioz, only the works of his that were performed are listed. Where the concert was conducted by Berlioz, the whole programme is mentioned where possible, and not just his own works. This is in practice often difficult to achieve, since the evidence (notably from the contemporary press) is frequently not readily available, and uncertainties remain (see further below).
• Except in a few cases, references have not been given to the numbers assigned to Berlioz’s works in D. Kern Holoman’s Catalogue of the Works of Hector Berlioz (1987). These numbers will be found in the page Berlioz: A Complete Listing of his Musical Works, which should be used in conjunction with the present page.

Sources

    The primary sources used are in the first instance Berlioz’s own writings: his correspondence, his critical writings (especially his feuilletons for the Journal des Débats), and his autobiographical works (especially his posthumous Mémoires). Next in importance comes the contemporary Paris press: announcements of concerts, reviews and other articles. A large number of letters of the composer (or rather excerpts from them) will be found in a companion page of Texts and Documents, where the material is arranged chronologically year by year; the page also includes some passages from the contempary press. But the links in the tables often point also to other pages elsewhere on this site; for example the first performance of the Requiem in 1837 is treated in detail on the page devoted to the Invalides, while the later performances of the work in 1846, 1850 and 1852 are treated in the page on Saint-Eustache. For the concerts of 1850-1851 the reader is referred to the page The Société Philharmonique, 1850-1851 and its associated page of Texts and Documents (the latter are in French only). There is also on separate pages a selection of texts in translation (mostly from the composer’s Mémoires) concerning his major works: his symphonies, vocal and choral works, and operas. In general, Berlioz’s own writings have been used and reproduced more systematically than the contemporary press; for the latter, a listing of what is available on this site is to be found on the page Berlioz: Contemporary Performances and Articles, to which additions are made from time to time.

    The listing of concerts and performances is intended to be as complete as possible, though gaps and errors certainly remain, which will be supplemented or corrected in time. The compilation of the present page is naturally indebted to the work of predecessors in the field. Particular mention should be made of Julien Tiersot’s pioneering study ‘Berlioz directeur de concerts symphoniques’, published in the journal Le Ménestrel in 1909-1910; though necessarily dated in the information that was available to Tiersot, it retains its value and interest, as indeed does the whole series of Tiersot’s articles entitled Berlioziana, which is reproduced in full on this site. Among more recent works may be singled out Holoman’s Catalogue of the Works of Hector Berlioz mentioned above, which lists all known performances of Berlioz’s works in his lifetime and cites the evidence for particular performances, though only from the composer’s writings and unfortunately not from other sources (such as the Paris press). Holoman’s Berlioz (1989) also contains in Appendix C ‘Concerts’ (pp. 612-27) a listing of all the concerts given by Berlioz himself, in Paris and abroad, though without reference to any of the original sources. Pierre Citron’s Calendrier Berlioz (2000) lists among all the events of the composer’s life his concerts, though again without any source references. The lists given in all three books, it should be said, show occasional gaps and errors. Wherever possible we have tried to verify the data provided in these pages from contemporary evidence, but this is not always readily available and uncertainties do remain.

A general view

    Berlioz’s numerous concerts abroad have been covered in detail in a series of pages on this site: see the pages on Berlioz in Germany and Central Europe, Berlioz and France (concerts outside Paris), Berlioz in Russia, Berlioz in London, and Berlioz in Belgium. The listing provided here of Berlioz’s concert activity in Paris should be seen in relation to all these pages, and together they provide an almost complete conspectus of the concerts given by Berlioz in France and abroad in his lifetime — though not a complete listing of performances of his music given abroad, a number of which, and increasingly so towards the latter part of his career, were not conducted by the composer.

    This is not the place to analyse in detail the data presented below, and readers will be able to pursue their own lines of enquiry. Suffice it to mention one general point which emerges when the tables below are compared with the complete listing of all Berlioz’s musical works mentioned above: the vast majority of first performances of Berlioz’s music in the composer’s lifetime took place in Paris, notably his four symphonies (and the sequel to the Symphonie fantastique, Le Retour à la vie), his major choral works (the early Messe solennelle, the Requiem and Te Deum), La Damnation de Faust, L’Enfance du Christ, of the operas Benvenuto Cellini and the second part of Les Troyens (Les Troyens à Carthage), and a number of shorter vocal, choral or orchestral works (including most of the overtures). The number of works that were first performed abroad is very small in comparison: a few songs and vocal works in the original or in a revised version: La Belle voyageuse — Stuttgart, 1842; Absence — Dresden, 1843; Zaïde — Vienna, 1845; Le Chasseur danois — Vienna, 1845 and Prague, 1846; the Repos de la sainte famille — London, 1853; the orchestration of Schubert’s Le Roi des aulnes (Erlkönig) — Baden-Baden, 1860. Also two short orchestral works: the original version of the Marche hongroise — Pest, 1846, and the overture Le Corsaire — Brunswick, 1854. Of longer works there was only the revised version of Le Retour à la vie — Weimar, 1855, and most important his last opera Béatrice et Bénédict — Baden-Baden, 1862.

    It should be added that some of Berlioz’s finest music was never performed in his lifetime: this includes the song cycle Les Nuits d’été in its orchestral version, the three pieces collected under the title Tristia, and above all the first part of Les Troyens (La Prise de Troie): Berlioz never heard what probably was his greatest work in the form in which he had originally conceived it.

Berlioz the conductor

    ‘What a picture [Berlioz] was at the head of his orchestra, with his eagle face, his bushy hair, his air of command, and glowing with enthusiasm. He was the most perfect conductor that I ever set eyes upon, one who held absolute sway over his troops, and played upon them as a pianist upon the keyboard’. Thus Charles Hallé, reminiscing about his experiences of half a century earlier: his impressions of Berlioz the conductor were formed in the late 1830s and early 1840s, when he not only heard Berlioz conducting concerts (such as the first performances of Roméo et Juliette in November and December 1839), but had even played under his baton (concerts of 1 and 15 February 1842; 19 February 1845). The verdict of Hallé is echoed by others. For example Hans von Bülow, writing to Liszt from Dresden in April 1854, commented on Berlioz’s conducting of the Dresden orchestra: ‘The entire court orchestra and the singers are in the full flush of elation. They are happy to have been taught by this incomparable conductor to appreciate their own talent and capacities’.

    As a young man, Berlioz, inspired by the biographies of Gluck and Haydn which he read at La Côte-Saint-André in Michaut’s Biographie universelle, dreamed of becoming a great composer (Mémoires chapter 4): but he did not at this time dream that he would also become a great conductor. When he moved to Paris in 1821 he was fired by the performances at the Opéra of the works of Gluck, Spontini and others, and by the great singers to be heard there (notably Mme Branchu); he also started to form friendships with instrumental players and study the technical and expressive possibilities of their instruments. But conductors as such figure little in his account of his early musical experiences in Paris. When he wanted to get his early Messe solennelle performed at Saint Roch in 1824 and 1825, he turned naturally to a professional conductor (Valentino) because of his own lack of experience (Mémoires chapters 6 and 8). He did, remarkably, venture to conduct himself the second performance of the work at Saint-Eustache in 1827 (Mémoires chapter 8), and relates that he ‘managed passably well’, though he adds:

How far was I from having the countless qualities of precision, flexibility, warmth, sensitivity and coolness, combined with an indefinable instinct, which constitute the talent of the true conductor! And how much time, practice and thought I needed to acquire some of these!

    After this early but solitary venture into conducting, Berlioz continued for years to rely on experienced conductors to perform his works: the first concert he gave that was devoted wholly to his own music (26 May 1828) was conducted by Bloc, the second by Habeneck (1 November 1829), who went on to conduct the first performance of the Symphonie fantastique (5 December 1830) and of the same work with its sequel Le Retour à la vie (9 and 30 December 1832). In 1833 Berlioz returned for the first time to the podium (concert of 24 November), but owing to his inexperience, as he admits (Mémoires chapter 45), that was a serious failure which he had to retrieve by turning again to the services of an established conductor. This time it was Girard, with whom he had been for some time on friendly terms (Mémoires chapters 27 and 45). The association with Girard continued for another two years, until the first performance of Harold en Italie (22 November 1834) when Girard’s fumbling with the new score proved a turning point (Mémoires chapter 45): ‘I resolved henceforward to conduct myself, and not to rely any more on anyone to communicate my intentions to the performers’. From this time dates Berlioz’s lifelong distrust of other conductors as interpreters of his own music (see for example CG nos. 1543, 1631; Mémoires Post-scriptum, and the section on conductors in the page on Pioneers and Champions); from December 1835 until 1859 almost all the performances of his music that were given in Paris were conducted by himself, with few exceptions. The most important were the Requiem in 1837, conducted by Habeneck, who enjoyed an unwritten right of conducting music at major public events (Mémoires chapter 46), and Benvenuto Cellini in 1838 and 1839, also conducted by Habeneck, since the custom was in France that composers should not conduct their own works in opera houses…

    Berlioz was thus made to become his own conductor, not in order to make a career as a conductor, but to guarantee faithful renderings of his own works. In this field, more perhaps than in any others, he had to be entirely self-taught: at the time the art of conducting was only beginning to emerge as a separate branch of musical performance, and was not taught as a discipline at the Conservatoire in Paris or any comparable institution in Europe (cf. Berlioz’s comments in relation to the Conservatoire in Prague in 1846 in the Mémoires). As a composer Berlioz was inspired by his great predecessors and models, notably Gluck, Spontini, Weber and Beethoven. But as a conductor he had no models at all, and was thus forced to innovate in order to achieve the desired results: for example, instead of having the full orchestra and chorus at every rehearsal he introduced the infinitely more useful method of sectional rehearsals. He also dropped the widely used practice of using a violin bow to beat time and replaced it with a fir baton (Habeneck continued to use a bow, cf. Mémoires chapter 48); one critic (François Schwab) uses the striking phrase ‘a magnetised steel scepter’ to describe the conductor’s baton in the hands of Berlioz (CG no. 2311). Besides all the purely musical requirements of putting on a concert — preparing instrumental and vocal parts, recruiting suitable players, providing where necessary special instruments, booking venues for rehearsals and concerts — there was also the all-important need to publicise concerts in advance and secure a favourable press after the event. What is remarkable is how quickly Berlioz developed all the necessary skills: he conducted his first concert in his new role on 13 December 1835 (CG no. 454) and within a few years his mastery of the forces under his command was evident, as instanced by the three successive performances of Roméo et Juliette in November and December 1839.

    According to the rules for the Prix de Rome for musical composition, Berlioz’s trip to Italy in 1831-32 should have been followed without delay by a comparable trip to Germany. In practice his departure to Germany was delayed for more than a decade. There were personal reasons for this: his marriage to Harriet Smithson in 1833, the need to make a living through his writing as a music critic, and his wish to establish his position in Paris. But in retrospect there were also imperative musical reasons: first, he needed to build up a portfolio of scores that could travel with him and be performed abroad, and second, he needed to develop his skills as a conductor and organiser of concerts. Without these the trip to Germany would have served little purpose. The trip itself was very instructive from a practical point of view: Berlioz learned to organise concerts while on the move, in a foreign country and with orchestras and players he did not know, and who were not familiar with his music. Since much of the music was as yet unpublished, he had to carry a large quantity of scores and parts with himself. How far Berlioz progressed in these respects is eloquently expressed in a passage at the start of his third letter on his German trip, addressed to Liszt; it was first published in the Journal des Débats on 28 August 1843 and subsequently incorporated in the Mémoires. In it he draws a striking contrast between a travelling virtuoso pianist, such as Liszt, and the travelling conductor, whose task is at first immeasurably more difficult, but who reaps at the end rewards far greater than those of a solo performer. — Years later, during his stay in London in 1855, Berlioz was asked by the publisher Novello to set down in writing for the instruction of others what he had learned about conducting in his career; the result was a pamphlet entitled The Art of the Conductor, which was added to the revised edition of his Treatise on Instrumentation and Orchestration; the French text of the original is available on this site.

    On his return from Germany in the early summer of 1843 Berlioz expected to be able to resume his concert-making in Paris as before: he gave a concert at the Conservatoire (19 November 1843), but this turned out to be the last one there for a long time to come. Berlioz’s success as a composer and conductor, and his growing rapport with orchestral players, excited envy among the established conductors Girard and Habeneck; they had once supported him and conducted his works, but now saw in him a rival who had to be kept at a distance. He was denied access to the Conservatoire and his works were not to be played there. Berlioz was forced to look for other venues — Paris was short of good concert halls other than the Conservatoire — and recruit orchestras for special concerts: for example, La Damnation de Faust should have been premièred at the Conservatoire (as the Symphonie fantastique, Harold en Italie and Roméo et Juliette had been in the 1830s), but instead it was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in December 1846 with forces recruited for the occasion, and received there only two complete performances (CG no. 1092). Though parts of the work were played again in Paris subsequently, including on two occasions at the Conservatoire (15 April 1849; 7 April 1861), the work was not played again complete till after Berlioz’s death, when ironically it became from 1877 onwards by far his most popular work in Paris, and received there no less than 175 performances by the Concerts Colonne up to the outbreak of World War I.

    Henceforward Berlioz had to look increasingly abroad to deploy his conducting talents: the trip to Russia in 1847 and the success he won there and in Berlin on the return journey, compensated for the failure of La Damnation in Paris and brought rich rewards. But the trip to London in 1847-8 did not live up to expectations, through circumstances beyond his control (the bankruptcy of the impresario Jullien who had invited him, and the outbreak of revolutions all over Europe in 1848). After his return from London he took a new initiative in Paris in 1850, which if successful might have answered his problems: the foundation of a new concert society directed and conducted by himself, the Société Philharmonique, which provided him with an orchestra of his own for the first and last time in his life, and enabled him to perform his own works as well as those of other composers. But after a promising start the enterprise failed after little over a year, above all for financial reasons; the demise of the society was a major setback in his career. The history of this venture is traced in detail on another page of this site.

    As well as continued successes abroad (London in 1852, Germany in the same and subsequent years) Berlioz was still able to score some major successes in Paris, notably with the unexpectedly warm reception given to L’Enfance du Christ (December 1854), the Te Deum in 1855 and the concerts for the Universal Exhibition in Paris in the same year. But the number and frequency of the concerts given by Berlioz in Paris dwindled considerably at the end of the 1850s, and in the 1860s he only conducted there three more times (in 1863 and 1866). When Girard died in January 1860 Berlioz decided not put his name forward to succeed him in either of the two major conducting posts he held, at the Conservatoire and at the Opéra, and was unable to secure appointment to Girard’s third post, the less demanding one of conductor of the court chapel (CG nos. 2465, 2475). Tilmant was appointed at the Conservatoire, but retired three years later in December 1863, at which point Berlioz — perhaps surprisingly, in view of his reluctance in 1860 — decided to apply to succeed him (CG no. 2812); but he came third in the first round of voting and the post went to George Hainl, with whom he was on good terms (as he had been with Tilmant). Berlioz conducted for the last time in Paris on 1st March 1866. But his conducting career was by no means over, though it was abroad that he was to score his final triumphs, in Vienna in December 1866 and in his final concert tour in Russia in 1867-8, where he gave the very last concert of his career in St Petersburg on 8 February 1868.

Table of concerts and performances 1825-1869

Abbreviations

* = Concert or performance conducted by Berlioz
ov. = overture

1825

Note
(10 July) First performance of the Messe solennelle.

1826

—

1827

Note
(22 November) This was the first time that Berlioz conducted in public.

1828

Note
(26 May) First performance of all the works concerned; first orchestral concert by Berlioz, devoted solely to his works.

1829

Note
(1 November) First performance of the Concert des sylphes.

1830

Note
(18 February) First performance of both works.
(30 October) First performance of Sardanapale.
(7 November) First performance of La Tempête.
(5 December) First performances of the Chant guerrier and of the Symphonie fantastique.

1831

—

1832

Notes
(9 December) First performance of Le Retour à la vie as sequel to the Symphonie fantastique.
(30 December) First performance of version C of La Captive (H60).

1833

Notes
(14 April) First and only performance of Rob Roy.
(24 November) Benefit performance for Harriet Smithson; the performance of the Symphonie fantastique was abandoned because of the defection of many of the musicians.
(22 December) First performances of le Roi Lear, the (lost) Romance de Marie Tudor, and of Le Paysan breton.

1834

Notes
(9 November) First performances of Sara la baigneuse (version H69A) and of la Belle voyageuse (version H42B). *** is probably Berlioz himself.
(23 November) First performance of version H60D of la Captive and version H65B of le Jeune pâtre breton; first performance of Harold en Italie.
(7/14 December) Surprisingly, the date of Berlioz’s third concert in 1834 is given two different dates by different authorities, but without any discussion: 7 December (e.g. Tiersot; CM II p. 3 n. 9), or 14 December (e.g. CG; Holoman Catalogue). — There are discrepancies between the programme announced in Gazette musicale and what may have been performed at the concert (see Tiersot). The Berlioz aria may have been the Incendie from Sardanapale (but Holoman, Catalogue p. 97 names Puig and not Boulanger as the tenor); two other arias may have been sung by Mlle Boucault and Mme Gay-Saintville, and in addition Mlle Heinefetter may have sung an aria by Donizetti.
(28 December) Holoman, Catalogue p. 92 lists a complete performance of the Symphonie fantastique at this concert.

1835

Notes
(4 June) Version H65B of Le Jeune paysan breton.
(22 November) First performance of Le Cinq mai.

1836

1837

Note
(5 December) First performance of the Requiem.

1838

Note
(10 September) First performance of Benvenuto Cellini.

1839

Note
(15 December) Richard Wagner attended this concert, which made a deep impression on him. — According to CG no. 690 Berlioz intended to include in this concert an excerpt from the Requiem, but the idea is no longer mentioned in CG no. 692.

1840

Notes
(26 July) First performance of the Symphonie funèbre.
(7 August) According to Holoman Catalogue p. 189 the overture to Benvenuto Cellini was included in the programme of this concert and that of 14 August.
(14 August) See the previous note. — Richard Wagner attended this concert, and the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale made a deep impression on him, as may be seen from an article of his which appeared in the Dresdner Abendzeitung in May 1841.
(13 December) First performance of Sara la baigneuse (version H69B).

1841

1842

Notes
(1 February) First performance of Rêverie et caprice, of l’Invitation à la valse and of the Symphonie militaire (Symphonie funèbre) with a second orchestra of strings.
(24 April) Berlioz’s review in the Journal des Débats does not mention that he conducted the concert himself, and is silent on the two works of his which were included in the programme.
(7 November) First performance of the Symphonie funèbre with chorus in the last movement. Habeneck conducted the strings in the pit, and Berlioz the chorus and wind instruments on stage.

1843

Note
(19 November) The programme for this concert is given in 3 letters of Berlioz (CG nos. 856bis, 858, 860) in which he asks his correspondents to announce the concert in their newspapers. The programme is identical in all 3 letters, except that CG no. 858 omits the cavatina from Benvenuto Cellini; on the other hand the sequence of the pieces differs in a few details; the programme has been presented here in the sequence of the letter to Hippolyte Lucas (CG no. 860). — First performance at this concert of Absence in its version with orchestra, written in Dresden during the trip to Germany (cf. CG no. 816); the version with piano accompaniment had been performed at the Conservatoire on 24 April 1842. — This concert was the last one conducted by Berlioz at the Conservatoire for many years to come (see 1858): from this date onwards he was excluded from the Conservatoire, unfortunately out of pure jealousy on the part of the ‘coterie of the Conservatoire’ and of the conductor Narcisse Girard, once his supporter and now his rival (Mémoires ch. 59).

1844

Notes
(3 February) Hélène: version for male chorus and orchestra (H60B); Chant sacré: version for six instruments by Sax (H44C); first performance of Carnaval romain.
(6 April) The programme may have included other pieces, notably the cavatina from Benvenuto Cellini (Marie Recio), a piece by Paganini (Sivori), an excerpt from Robert-le-Diable (Meyerbeer) transcribed for wind instruments, and a motet by Palestrina.
(4 May) The orchestra was in practice that of the Conservatoire (see CG no. 902 and the review by Berlioz [CM V pp. 481-2]). The exact sequence of the pieces in the programme is not clear.
(1 August) First performance of Hymne à la France.

1845

Notes
(19 January) First and only performance of La Tour de Nice (H101A). — The remarks of Charles Hallé on Berlioz’s conducting of le Carnaval romain refer to this concert and not to the first performance of the work the previous year (3 February).
(6 April) First performance of Meyer’s Marche marocaine in the orchestration by Berlioz.

1846

Notes
(9 May) The concert was in honour of Ibrahim Pacha, crown prince of Egypt, though in the event he did not attend it (Le Ménestrel). The concert took place very soon after Berlioz’s return from his trip to central Europe, and does not seem to have left any traces in his correspondence.
(6 December) First performance of La Damnation de Faust.

1847

—

1848

Note
(29 October) First performance of La Captive in its final orchestral version (H60F). — The exact sequence of pieces on the programme is not clear.

1849

Note
(15 April) Berlioz’s hope of being readmitted henceforward to the Conservatoire were to be disappointed: he had to wait till 1861, after the death of Girard on 16 January 1860, to hear his music performed again at the Conservatoire.

1850

Notes
(22 October) First performance of the choral version of Sara la baigneuse (H69C).
(12 November) First performance of l’Adieu des bergers (H128 II).

1851

Notes
(25 March) First and only performance of La Menace des Francs; last performance of the Symphonie fantastique in Paris in Berlioz’s lifetime.
(23 May) Last performance of Le Roi Lear in Paris in Berlioz’s lifetime.

1852

1853

Notes
(4 December) Berlioz was in Germany at the time.
(18 December) First performance in Paris of La Fuite en Égypte; Berlioz was present.

1854

Note
(10 December) First performance of L’Enfance du Christ.

1855

Notes
(1 April) This was the only performance of the Corsaire overture in Paris in Berlioz’s lifetime.
(7 April) Holoman, Catalogue p. 341 and the Calendrier Berlioz p. 168 state incorrectly that only the first part of the work was performed on this occasion.
(30 April) First and only complete performance of the Te Deum in Berlioz’s lifetime.
(15 November) The programme was drastically cut short by the emperor to make way for his speech.

1856

Notes
(25 January) Tiersot points out that Berlioz issued numerous complimentary tickets for this concert, including to members of the Institut; the success of the concert probably helped to prepare the ground for Berlioz’s election to the Institut the following June.
(16 July) On Niedermeyer’s Messe solennelle see Journal des Débats 27 December 1849; Berlioz had already conducted the work on 1st March 1851 with the Société Philharmonique.

1857

1858

Note
(2 May) For this concert Berlioz secured permission to use the hall of the Conservatoire through the intercession of the Duke of Gotha (CG no. 2294).

1859

Notes
(23 April) First performance of  Martini Plaisir d’amour (orch. Berlioz).
(6 August) This was the first public performance of any music from Les Troyens.

1860

—

1861

Notes
(7 April) This was the first time since 1849 that music from La Damnation de Faust was performed at the Conservatoire. The part of Faust was sung by Grizy and not by Paulin, as CG no. 2541 might lead to believe.
(3 November) From this time onwards Pasdeloup included music of Berlioz every year in the programme of his newly founded Concerts populaires.

1862

Note
(7 April) It is not known which scene from Les Troyens was performed, nor who was the other singer apart from Mme Charton-Demeur.

1863

Notes
(22 February) This concert was the last time that Berlioz conducted his own music in Paris.
(22 March) It was after this concert that Berlioz donated to the Conservatoire all his printed and manuscript scores, and vocal and orchestral parts (CG no. 2702; 25 March; Mémoires, Postface).
(5 and 8 April) See CG nos. 2703 with n. and 2705 on a projected repeat on 5 April of the concert of 22 March, but it is not clear that it took place, nor is there any evidence for the performance on 8 April listed by Holoman. Berlioz was away in Germany for the first three weeks of April.

1864

1865

1866

Note
(1st March) This was the last time that Berlioz conducted in Paris.

1867

Note
(11 July) Berlioz originally intended to attend the rehearsal of Hymne à la France on 29 June (CG nos. 3247, 3249 with notes), but was prevented by the sudden news of the death of his son Louis; the concert was originally scheduled for 4 July but had to be postponed. Holoman, Catalogue p. 259 mentions an earlier performance of the work on 8 July for which there does not appear to be any evidence.

1868

1869

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