The Hector Berlioz Museum

The Hector Berlioz Website

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The Hector Berlioz Website

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    It was in March 1998 that we first visited La Côte-Saint-André and Berlioz’s family home, which houses the Hector-Berlioz Museum. The result of that visit was the creation of a new illustrated page devoted to La Côte-Saint-André on the Berlioz website we had launched the previous year; since then this page has been considerably enlarged.

    At the time of our first visit the Museum was not yet under the direction of Chantal Spillemaecker and Antoine Troncy; they were appointed not longer after, and it is thanks to their inspiration and initiative that the Museum has subsequently developed and expanded to reach its present eminent status. Not only does it house a unique and constantly growing collection of everything related to the composer and his family, it has also become a centre for Berlioz studies visited by students and scholars from around the world.

    By the time of our next visit to La Côte in 2008, ten years later, we had started to correspond with Chantal Spillemaecker and Antoine Troncy who took the initiative in contacting us; relations have since blossomed into a fruitful and rewarding collaboration, and we have never looked back. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for having welcomed us at the Museum and made available for study and publication on the Berlioz website the priceless treasures of the Museum’s collections.

From the Museum’s collections

    The following lists the most important items from the Museum’s collections that we have been able to utilise and illustrate on our website:

2012

2013

2014

2015

2017

2018

Donations to the Museum

    The following is a list of the donations we have made to the Museum since 2009:

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

    For the 2017 exhibition on Berlioz à Londres, au temps des Expositions universelles we have donated a large number of items, a number of which are illustrated on this site; items donated include:

2018

Our Berlioz collection and its future

    Over the years we have built up a collection of Berlioz-related material which ranges from the 19th century to the present day, and comprises autograph letters, musical scores and books, contemporary and later journals, numerous engravings and images, postcards, a very large number of concert programmes from the 19th to the early 21st C (including several signed by Colin Davis), medals and other memorabilia, as well as recordings on LP, CD, and DVD. We have compiled and kept up to date a detailed inventory of our collection, of which the Museum has a copy.

    We have made extensive use of items in our collection on the website. In addition to those listed in the section above, examples include:

    Among items of particular interest, in addition to those mentioned above, may be mentioned the first editions of Les Soirées de l’orchestre (1852), Les Grotesques de la musique (1859), À Travers chants (1862), the Mémoires (1870; two copies); the first edition (vol. 2 only) of the Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie (1844); the first issue of the second edition of the Grand Traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (1855), the first editions of the full score of Harold en Italie (1848) and of the Marche troyenne (1865), and the first editions of the vocal scores of Weber’s Der Freischütz with Berlioz’s recitatives (1843), La Damnation de Faust (1854), and La Prise de Troie (1863).

    A number of items have already been donated by us to the Museum from 2009 onwards. More will follow in coming years, and in any case it is our intention to bequeathe our entire Berlioz collection to the Museum which does so much to preserve and promote the memory of the great French composer, and which is appropriately located in the family home and in the town in which he was born.

Reception at Grenoble on 11 December 2009
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From left to right: Antoine Troncy, Assistant de Conservation at the Hector Berlioz Museum,
Chantal Spillemaecker, Conservateur at the Hector Berlioz Museum, Monir Tayeb,
Claude Bertrand, vice-président chargé de la culture et du patrimoine, and Michel Austin
(photo © Conseil général de l’Isère).

 

Inauguration of the exhibition on Berlioz and Italy, 29 June 2012
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From left to right: Chantal Spillemaecker, Conservateur at the Hector Berlioz Museum,
Monir Tayeb, André Vallini, Président du Conseil général de l’Isère and sénateur de l’Isère, Michel Austin
© 2012 Le Dauphiné Libéré

 

At the Hector Berlioz Museum, 22 March 2013
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From left to right: Manon Maire, Antoine Troncy, Chantal Spillemaecker, Michel Austin, Monir Tayeb

 

At the Hector Berlioz Museum, August 2013
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Michel Austin at the Hector Berlioz Museum

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