FRIDAY EVENI NG DECEMBER 20th f/27 I q C:'-.C. ) o~'C!- THE LITTLE ORCHESTRA SOCIETY THOMAS SCHERMAN, conductor L'Enfance du Christ BY HECTOR BERLIOZ PROGRAM NOTES BY HERBERT WEINSTOCK OPERA HOUSE Brooklyn Academy of Music FRIDAY EVENING· DECEMBER 20 , 1957 THE CAST LA SAINTE MARIE-Frances Bible, MEZZO-SOPRANO LE RECITANT} . Leopold s~moneau, TENOR UN C ENTURION LE SAINT JOSEPH} . , M artwl Smgher, BARITONE HERODE , POLYDORUS} ]an Rubes BASS LEPERE DE FAMILLE ' THE AMERICAN CO CERT CHOIR-Margaret HiUis, DIRECTOR PART I • Herod's Dream INTERMISSION PART II • The Flight into Egypt PART III • The Arrival at Sais L'ENFANCE DU CHRIST Hector Berlioz, 1803-1869 ISITI'{G at a friend's home one evening during 1849. Berlioz was bored because the other V guests were playing cards. He began idly to sketch out a brief organ composition. His friend Pierre Due. architect of the Bastille Column, dissuaded him from continuing thi Andantino, however, and turned him to composing something for a souvenir album. The resulting mu ic. thus idly begun ~ shortly became a chorus in which a group of shepherds bids farewell to the Holy Family leaving for the fli ght into Egypt. The text was by Berlioz himself. As a joke of which Due shared the knowledge, Berlioz next invented a seventeenth· century chapel-master named Pierre Ducre, "dated" the "Adieu des Bergers" 1679, and gave out that it was Ducre's work. Within one year Berlioz had added to the "Adieu" a brief orchestral overture, an in­ strumental interlude entitled "Le Repos de la Sainte Famille," a tenor recitative describing the Holy Family's rest by the wayside, and a very short final chorus of angels chanting " Alleluia." To the entire brief cantata he gave the title "La Fuite en Egypte," allowing it to be performed on November 17, 1850, as the work of " Ducre." Although Berlioz knew that a listener would have to be as "ignorant as a fish" to believe that any seventeenth-century composer could have produced a work so clearly modern in harmony, most Parisian critics swallowed the hoax. Publishing " La Fuite" shortly later, Berlioz admitted his authorship, but allowed to stand on the title page the phrase "Attributed to Pierre Ducre, imaginary chapel-master." Between 1850 and July 1854, Berlioz added two much longer sections to " La Fuite," which thus became Part II of a triptych, all with text by himself. The opening section of this "trilogie sacree" he called "Le Songe d' Herode" ("Herod's Dream" ) ; the final section is " L'Arrivee a Sa~s" ("The Arrival at Sai's" ) . Calling the three-part work L'Enfance du Christ- which Jacques Barzun wisely translates as The Infant Christ rather than The Child­ hood of Christ - Berlioz himself conducted its premiere on December 10, 1854, the evening before his fifty-first birthday. The concert was an unexpected success: the work was received enthusiastically by an audience sufficiently large to earn the composer eleven hundred francs. L' Enfance du Christ, though stylistically remote from the Berlioz popularly supposed to require an army of thundering instruments for each composition, was soon established as one of his works for which there was always a public. So unlikely a Berliozian as Johannes Brahms regarded it as, at least in part, the French composer's chef d'oeuvre. Its neglect until recent years was but one more of the inexplicable accidents marking the so-called " standard repertoire." L' Enfance du Christ PART I: " Le Songe d'Herode" ("Herod's Dream") [A LIT E RAL ENGLISH T RANSLATION F OLLOW EACH SECTION OF THE FRENCH TEXT] "Le Songe d'H erode" is dedicated to the two daughters of Berlioz's sister Adele, Jose­ phine and ~ anc i Suat. It opens with a diminutive recitative for Le R ecitant (The Narrator) : LE RECIT :\. '\T : Dans la cr(·che. en ce temps. J esu vena it de naitre, Mais nul prodige encor ne l'avait fait connaitre ; Et deja les puissants tremblaient. Deja les faibles esperaient, Tous attendaient . .. Or. appr<'IH'Z. chreticns. quel crime epouvantable Au roi des juifs alors suggera la terreur. Et le celeste avis que. dans leur humble etable, \ ux parents de Jesus envo) a le Seigneur. [The Narrator : At this time Jesus had just been born in the manger, but no marvel had yet made this known ; and already the powerful trembled. already the weak hoped. Everyone waited ... Now learn, Christians, of the dreadful crime that terror had suggested to the king of the Jews. and of the Heavenly counsel that God sent to the parents of Je us in their humble stable.] Following this prologue. the score indicates "A street in Jerusalem ; a corps of guards ; Roman soldiers making their nightly rounds." This ghostly and peculiar " octurnal March," which at last dies a\\ a) in a ~omehow menacing silence. is suspended for a few moments midwa) \\hile A Centurion (tenor ) and Polydorus (another centurion. bass) discuss the t) rant Herod and his troubled state of mind: L '\ CE'\ TLRIOX: Qui vient? POL\DORL : Rome. LE 0 .:\Tl RION: Avancez! POL\DORUS : Halte! LE CE TURION: Polydorus ! Que fait Herode? POLYDORUS: Il reve, il tremble, Il voit parlout des traitres, il as emble on conseil chaque jour; et du soir au malin Il faut sur lui vei ller: il no us obsede en fin. LE CE'\TURION : Ridicule tyran! Mais va, poursuis ta ronde. POLYDORLS : Il le faut bien. Adieu ! Jupiter le confonde ! [Centurion: Who goes there? Polydorus: Rome. Centurion: Step forward! Polydorus: Halt! Centurion: Polydorus ! What is Herod doing ? Polydorus : He dreams, he trembles, he sees traitors everywhere, he assembles his council each day; and from evening to morning we must watch over him ; in short, he torments us. Centurion: Ridiculoustyrant! But go, pursue your rounds. Polydorus: I must. Farewell. Jupiter confound him!] The "Nocturnal March" tiptoes to its conclusion. The scene shifts to "The Interior of the Palace of Herod." Soliloquizing in royal solitude, Herod discusses his disturbing, re­ current dream about a child who will dethrone him. Of this evocative scene Jacques Barzun rightly wrote that it shows a Berlioz who "knew as well as Wagner or any other German technician how to develop a scene from a brief musical motto." HERODE: Toujours ce reve! encore cet enfant Qui doit me detroner! Et ne sa voir que croire De ce presage mena<;ant Pour rna vie et rna gloire! 0 misere des rois! Regner et ne pas vivre! A tous donner des lois. Et desirer de suivre Le chevrier, le chevrier au fond des bois! 0 nuit profonde Qui tiens le monde Dans le repos plonge, A mon sein ravage Donne la paix une heure, Et que ton voile effleure Mon front d'ennuis charge! Effort sterile! Le sommeil fuit; Et rna plainte inutile Ne hate point ton cours, interminable nuit. [Herod: Always this dream! Again this child destined to dethrone me! And not knowing what to believe of this sign menacing my life and my glory! 0 the misery of kings! To rule and not to live! To give laws to all while wishing instead to follow the goatherd to the depths of the woods! 0 profound night that has plunged the world into repose, give peace for one hour to my disturbed breast and let your mask lightly cover my forehead, so disturbed by weariness! Futile effort! Sleep evades me; and my useless pleading does not hasten your passing, inter­ minable night.] Polydorus enters. The terrified Herod at first threatens him with a sword, but recognizes him in time. POLYDORUS: Seigneur! HERODE: Laches, tremblez ! J e sais tenir encore Une epee . POLYDORUS: Arretez! HERODE: Ah! c'est toi, Polydore! Que viens-tu m'annoncer? POLYDORUS: Seigneur, les devins juifs viennent de s'assembler Par vos ordres. HERODE: Enfin! POLYDORUS: lis sont la! HERODE: Qu'ils paraissent! [ P olydorus: My lord! Herod: Tremble, you cowards, I still know how to manage a sword . .. Polydorus: Stop! Herod: Ah, it's you, Polydorus! What have you come to tell me? Poly­ dorus: My lord, the Jewish soothsayers have just assembled at your orders. Herod: Finally! Polydorus: They are here! Herod: Let them appear!] The soothsayers enter. In the accompaniment to their address to Herod the bassoon supplies a peculiarly Berliozian touch. LES DEVINS: Les sages de J udee, o roi! te reconnaissent Pour un prince savant et genereux. Ils te sont devoues; parle, qu'attends-tu d'eux? HERODE: Qu'ils veuillent m'eclairer. Est-il quelque remede Au souci devorant qui des longtemps m' obsede? LES DEVINS: Quel est-il? HERODE: Chaque nuit Le meme songe m'epouvante; Toujours une voix grave et lente Me repete ces mots: "Ton heureux temps s'enfuit! "Un enfant vient de naitre "Qui fera disparaitre "Ton trone,. et ton pouv01r. ..." Puis-je de vous savoir Si cette terreur qui m'accable Est fondee, et comment ce danger redoubtable Peut etre detourne? LES DEVINS: Les esprits le sauront, Et, par nous consultes, bientot ils repondront. [Soothsayers: The wise men of Judea. 0 King, know you as a wise and generous prince. They are devoted to you; speak, what do you wish from them? Herod: That they enlighten me. Is there some remedy for the devouring anxiety that has tormented me so long? Sooth­ sayers: What is it? Herod: Every night the same dream terrorizes me; always a grave, slow voice repeats these words to me: "Your happy days are running out! A child has just been born who will bring about the disappearance of your throne and your power ..."Can I learn from you whether this terror that overpowers me has any foundation and how this formid­ able danger can be warded off? Soothsayers: The spirits will know this, and if we consult them, will answer soon.] "The Soothsayers perform a cabalistic ceremony and proceed to conjure up spirits." Here again is Berlioz the master of psychological effect.