Letter of Berlioz to the director of Le Monde Illustré.
18 September 1858, p. 190
This page reproduces the published text of the letter that Berlioz wrote to the director of Le Monde Illustré regarding the serialisation of fragments of his Mémoires. The text has been scanned from a copy of the original issue of 18th September 1858 of the paper in our own collection (see the English translation below). The full text of the letter (the second paragraph has been omitted here by the editor of the journal) is given elsewhere in the original French and in English translation.
We have received from M. Hector Berlioz, the eminent writer and critic of the Journal des Débats, and the author of many celebrated works, the following letter:
To the director of the Monde Illustré.
« Monsieur,
You kindly ask me for details on my musical life, details of a more special, or even more personal, kind than the fragment you introduced a few months ago in the Monde Illustré. In 1848 in London I began writing a work which is now completed, which records the innumberable changes in the stormy atmosphere I have lived in until now. It is (to use a nautical metaphor) the log book of my painful journey.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros,
Incipiam.
Yours.
HECTOR BERLIOZ (de l’Institut). »
We are happy to be able to announce to our readers that the learned maestro has given us his manuscript. Our next issue will contain the first instalment of this work of the most striking interest and the most original verve.
See also a related page on this site:
Excerpts from Berlioz’s correspondence
The Hector Berlioz Website was created by
Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin on 18 July 1997
Page Hector Berlioz: Mémoires d’un
musicien – Le Monde Illustré
1858-1859 created on 15 January 2010; this page created on 15 January 2010.
© Monir Tayeb and Michel. All rights reserved.
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