The Hector Berlioz Website - A Catalogue of Berlioz’s Musical Works

The Hector Berlioz Website

Introduction

This page gives a complete listing of all Berlioz’s musical works, organised into 6 tables: I. Extant works (much the largest category) II. Works written but partially or completely lost III. Unfinished works IV. Works planned but not written V. Sketches and albumleaves VI. Works of disputed authenticity. In a small number of cases it has seemed appropriate to list a particular work in more than one category (for example the opera Les Francs-Juges). Almost every work listed is linked to one or more pages elsewhere on this site which provide more material on it.

The lists have been compiled using various sources, especially the indispensable Catalogue of the Works of Hector Berlioz (1987) by D. Kern Holoman, which forms volume 25 of the New Berlioz Edition (NBE). Numbers preceded by H refer to the relevant entry in Holoman’s Catalogue, to which the reader is referred for full details. Reference is also made in the tables below to an article by Pierre-René Serna, “Berlioz et l’opéra: tentations, avortements, frustrations” in Hector Berlioz, ed. Christian Wasselin & Pierre-René Serna (Paris, L’Herne, 2003), pp. 187-212 (referred to as “Serna” for short, followed by page numbers). We would like to express our particular thanks to Pierre-René Serna for a number of valuable suggestions which have been incorporated in the tables below.

In each table the works have been listed according to their date of composition, where known. The dates given should be used only as signposts. Even where a work is thought to have been composed at a particular date (for example, from the composer’s Correspondance générale; CG for short), it may well have been based in part on music written earlier (cf. here Berlioz and his music: self-borrowings), and Berlioz may also have continued to revise the work after the main period of composition. The Symphonie fantastique, for example, illustrates both points: though mainly written in 1830, the symphony is known to have incorporated music written years earlier, some of it dating even from before the time when the composer came to Paris in 1821, and Berlioz continued to revise the work in subsequent years after its first performance on 5 December 1830.

Where applicable the date and venue of the first performance of the relevant work is mentioned, sometimes with links to other pages on this site. It will be seen that many of Berlioz’s works that were performed in his lifetime received their first performance in Paris; in all such cases a link is provided to the page Berlioz and Paris — Concerts and performances 1825-1869 where a comprehensive listing may be found, together with references to the relevant sources.

In the tables below the page Berlioz and his music: self-borrowings is abbreviated as “Self-borrowings”.

Contents of this page:

I. Extant works

II. Works written but partially or completely lost

III. Unfinished works

IV. Works planned but not written

V. Sketches and albumleaves

VI. Works of disputed authenticity

VII. Related pages