Karneval in Rom (detail) / Johannes Lingelbach (ca. 1650)

The Roman Carnival Overture is one of Hector Berlioz’ most popular pieces. It owes its existence to the utter failure of an opera now generally considered a masterpiece. Actually, Berlioz’ musical life suffered a number of odd twists and turns before he ever wrote the opera.

At his parents’ insistence, Berlioz began to study medicine in 1821, and hated it. He spent more time and energy studying and listening to music, and even composed a few pieces. In 1826, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory. There, he studied composition with Jean-François Le Sueur and counterpoint with Anton Reicha.

He immediately began to apply for France’s most prestigious musical award, the Prix de Rome. On his fourth attempt, in 1830, he won by submitting a cantata that followed all the academic rules. It contained nothing of his own musical personality. He had already composed the Symphonie fantastique, which established his international reputation.

Hector in Italy

The prize required the winner to spend two years in Rome. By the time Berlioz finally won, he didn’t want to go. Rome had no musical life to compare with that of Paris. It had no concert orchestras or particularly good opera houses. Even church music disappointed. Berlioz composed very little during his residency. Most of it simply reworked music he had taken with him.

But although he was required to live in Rome for two years, nothing kept him from traveling throughout Italy. He came to love Italian folk music. He enjoyed other Italian cities much more than he enjoyed Rome. His impressions of them and the Italian countryside had a profound impact on music he composed after returning to Paris. Consider a few titles: Harold in Italy (his second symphony), Benvenuto Cellini (his opera about an Italian artist), and Roman Carnival.

Benvenuto Cellini, an operatic flop

Hector Berlioz / Émile Signol (1832)

Symphonic music had little prestige in Paris. Audiences soon forgot symphonic triumphs, but an opera that succeeded in Paris brought its composer worldwide fame. Recognizing this fact, Berlioz began to look for a suitable libretto as soon as he returned from Rome.

He eventually chose some scenes from the autobiography of the Italian Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini. He identified with Cellini’s artistic struggles so much that, in a sense, his opera is as autobiographical as the Symphonie fantastique.

Berlioz recognized that operatic audiences would have very little interest in his musical innovations. Instead of playing it safe, as he had done with his winning Prix de Rome cantata, he determined to win them over. The censors, musical politics, and the singers’ troubles learning such difficult music presented additional obstacles. Today we recognize Benvenuto Cellini as one of Berlioz’ most inventive works, but it received only three performances in September 1838. After one performance of a revision in January 1839, Berlioz withdrew it.

Roman Carnival Overture

Like many other composers, Berlioz frequently reused earlier music. Roman Carnival relies primarily on two pieces from Benvenuto Cellini. Both of them were in turn borrowed from still earlier works.

The overture’s title comes from the opera’s carnival scene. Berlioz adapted music from one of his very first compositions, Messe solonnelle, for chorus. He turned it into a saltarello (a fast Italian dance form).  The conductor, François-Antoine Habeneck never took it fast enough, and Berlioz considered his too-slow tempo one of the reasons for the opera’s failure.

The overture begins with a snippet from this saltarello, which returns prominently later on. But first, it continues with an English horn solo based on the love duet “O Teresa, vous que j’aime plus que ma vie” (O Teresa, whom I love more than my own life). Berlioz had derived that music from one of his unsuccessful Prix de Rome cantatas, La morte de Cléopatra.

Berlioz himself conducted the premiere of his overture in 1844. The audience loved it and demanded to hear it again immediately. In the opera, Cellini succeeded in finishing a complicated sculpture against all odds. Then he got to marry his true love. Berlioz must have felt like the overture finally gave him the same success. Especially when he saw Habeneck back stage afterward. The two had clashed for so long about so many different pieces.

In his Memoirs, Berlioz recalled, “I saw Habeneck standing with a slightly crestfallen air, and said casually as I went past, ‘That’s how it goes.’ He did not reply.”

Sources:
Benvenuto Cellini / Christian Wasselin, Hector Berlioz Website
Berlioz in Italy / Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb, Hector Berlioz Website
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture / Gene de Lisa Classical Music Brain Droppings. September 11, 2008
Overture: Roman Carnival (H 95) / Michel Austin, Hector Berlioz Website