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The Favourite Prayer, and is quite a good example of the conventional operatic music of the period; as is Romeo's song with chorus, in which he strives to quiet the street-quarrel between the rival houses. The love duets with Juliet are thoroughly vocal; and the trios, called
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Favourite
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Roméo et Juliette, symphonic dramatique avec choeurs, solos de chant, et prologue en récitatif choral, op. 17, to give it its full title, was finished in 1838, produced in 1839 at the Conservatoire, and {124} repeated three times within a short period. The work had a very mixed reception. Berlioz was never popular in Paris or among his own countrymen; but all admitted that the general conception was colossal. It is now regarded as a classic throughout the world, but it is a big undertaking to produce. Little bits of it
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as _entr'actes_ or incidental music to a production of the play in London. The words are by Berlioz, inspired by Shakespeare, and versified by Emil Deschamps; and the work is dedicated to Paganini, who a little earlier had presented Berlioz with twenty thousand francs to show his admiration for the earlier Symphonie Fantastique. Berlioz says in his autobiography:
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I remember in one of my Campagna rides with Mendelssohn (this was during his tenure of the Prix de Rome) expressing my surprise that no one had ever written a scherzo on Shakespeare's sparkling little poem, _Queen Mab_. He, too, was surprised, and I was very sorry I had put the idea into his head. For years I lived in dread that he had used it: for he would have made it impossible, or at any rate very risky, for anyone to attempt to do it after him. Luckily he forgot.
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of the conventional symphony, is very beautiful. The fourth section (Scherzo) is called
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Queen Mab, and is one of those delicate, gossamer, fairylike works in which Berlioz {125} so excels. Then come choral music for the funeral cortege of Juliet, and Romeo's invocation at the tomb of the Capulets. The finale takes place in the graveyard: Montagues and Capulets are both there, Friar Laurence explains everything, and there is reconciliation between the rival houses, ending in their swearing over the graves to be friends for ever. I know this is a very bald account. The work should be heard to be understood fairly; but a very interesting couple of hours can be spent by a musician on the full score of this work in the British Museum reading-room. The text is given in both French and German. Wagner, in his letters from Paris, 1841, says of Berlioz:
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He has no friend deemed worthy to be asked for counsel, none he would permit to draw his notice to this or that sin against form in his works. In regard to this, I was filled with regret by a hearing of his symphony, _Roméo et Juliette_. Amid the most brilliant inventions, this work is heaped with such a mass of trash and solecisms that I could not repress the wish that Berlioz had shown this composition before performance to some such man as Cherubini, who, without doing its originality the slightest harm, would certainly have had the wit to rid it of a quantity of disfigurements.... Wherefore Berlioz will always remain imperfect, and, maybe, shine as nothing but a transient marvel.