Evenings with the orchestra
During the performances of fashionable operas in an unidentified but "civilized" town in northern Europe, the musicians (with the exception of the conscientious bass drummer) tell tales, read stories, and exchange gossip to relieve the tedium of the bad music they are paid to perform. In this delightful and now classic narrative written by the brilliant composer and critic Hector Berlioz, we are privy to twenty-five highly entertaining evenings with a fascinating group of distracted performers. This edition of the author's translation of this work contains a new foreword by Berlioz scholar Peter Bloom
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xxvi, 381 pages : illustrations, portrait ; 23 cm
9780226043746, 0226043746
40396113
Foreword / Peter Bloom
Preface to the Phoenix Edition / Jacques Barzun
Introduction / Jacques Barzun
Prologue
First Evening
The First Opera
Vincenza
The Vexations of Kleiner the Elder
Second Evening
The Strolling Harpist
The Performance of an Oratorio
The Sleep of the Just
Third Evening [Der Freischultz]
Fourth Evening
A Debut in Freischutz
Marescot
Fifth Evening
The S in Robert le diable
Sixth Evening
How a Tenor Revolves around the Public
The Vexations of Kleiner the Younger
Seventh Evening
Historical and Philosophical Studies: De viris illustribus urbis Romae
A Roman Woman
Vocabulary of the Roman Language
Eighth Evening
Romans of the New World
Mr. Barnum
Jenny Lind's Trip to America
Ninth Evening
The Paris Opera and London's Opera Houses
Tenth Evening
On the Present State of Music
The Tradition of Tack
A Victim of Tack
Eleventh Evening [A Masterpiece]
Twelfth Evening
Suicide from Enthusiasm
Thirteenth Evening
Spontini, a Biographical Sketch
Fourteenth Evening
Operas off the Assembly Line
The Problem of Beauty
Schiller's Mary Stuart
A Visit to Tom Thumb
Fifteenth Evening
Another Vexation of Kleiner the Elder's
Sixteenth Evening
Musical and Phrenological Studies
Nightmares
The Puritans of Sacred Music
Paganini
Seventeenth Evening [The Barber of Seville]
Eighteenth Evening
Charles Leveled against the Author's Criticism
Analysis of The Lighthouse
The Piano Possessed
Nineteenth Evening [Don Giovanni]
Twentieth Evening
Historical Gleanings: Napoleon's Odd Susceptibility
His Musical Judgment
Napoleon and Lesueur
Napoleon and the Republic of San Marino
Twenty-first Evening
The Study of Music
Twenty-second Evening [Iphigenia in Tauris]
Twenty-third Evening
Gluck and the Conservatory in Naples
A Saying of Durante's
Twenty-fourth Evening [Les Huguenots]
Twenty-fifth Evening
Euphonia, or the Musical City
Epilogue
The Farewell Dinner
Second Epilogue
Corsino's Letter to the Author
The Author's Reply to Corsino
Originally published: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1973
Includes index