On the Way to 'Euphonia': Berlioz's Promotion of Earlier Music

This is a lightly revised version of the 2011 text issued in French in 'Berlioz: textes et contextes', listed already on this site. Contesting the idea that Berlioz had little time for earlier music, the article correlates information up to 1844 from Berlioz's journal writings with his praxis as a concert organiser in Paris, a world where more and more music of earlier periods was becoming available in print and in performance. Berlioz's method was to become interested in a particular composer, then to research his music further, and then, if he saw its serious value, to perform a piece by that composer, often in juxtaposition with his own music. Having heard Choron's concerts as a young man, he never lost his interest in Handel and (in a different way) Palestrina. The 1844 festival concert in the Palais d'Industrie was staged by Berlioz at the same moment as the final instalment of 'Euphonia' was published. Both address the question of musical value, the claims of the musical past as against those of its present.