The Musée Hector Berlioz and the Hector Berlioz Website

Our Common Project

 

 

 

 

 

On 11th December 2009, on the 206th anniversary of Berlioz’s birth, at a reception given by the Conseil Général de l’Isère in Grenoble, we formally announced our intention to bequeath in our wills our entire Berlioz collection, the Hector Berlioz Website, and the largest part of our estate to the Musée Hector Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André. It was on this occasion that we donated to the Berlioz Museum two autograph letters of Berlioz dated respectively June 1832 and May 1853. The Conseil Général de l’Isère issued a press release on the day  and the event was reported the following day in the Grenoble-based newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré, in Sillon 38 – Le journal du monde rural, and in L’Essor a few days later (it should be noted that the newspaper reports contain some inaccuracies).

From left to right: M. Antoine Troncy, Assistant de Conservation at the Musée Hector Berlioz, Madame Chantal Spillemaecker, Conservateur of the Musée Hector Berlioz, Monir Tayeb, M. Claude Bertrand, vice-président (culture et patrimoine) of the Conseil Général de l’Isère and Michel Austin (photo © Conseil Général de l’Isère).

The Hector Berlioz Website was founded on 18 July 1997. It comprised at first only a single page, but has since expanded considerably in many directions, as a glance at the Site History will show. For some time we had been considering the long-term future of our website. We had already developed a fully functional CD version of the entire site, constantly updated, and complete with multiple search engines, with the intention of depositing copies of it with suitable libraries, museums, educational and research institutions. 

Our decision to include the online website in our bequest to the Berlioz Museum arose from the increasingly close relations we had developed with the Museum over a period of years. We first discussed the planned bequest with the Conseil Général de l’Isère and the Museum at a meeting in September 2008 and were delighted to receive their support and good will. Legal arrangements are now being put in place and we look forward to our continued collaboration with the Museum.

As we said at the reception in Grenoble, there could be no better home for our Berlioz collection, no better custodian of our internet site, nor a better recipient of the largest part of our estate, than the Museum which does so much to preserve and promote the memory of the great French composer, and which is located in the family home and in the town in which he was born.

During July and August 2011 the Berlioz website was transferred to the servers of the Conseil Général de l’Isère where it will now remain. We are very grateful to the Conseil Général for accepting our request to host the site.

As far as the long-term future of the website is concerned, this guarantees its continued presence on the internet beyond our lifetime, though visitors to the site may rest assured that we intend to continue to develop and improve it for many years to come.

Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb

1 January 2010, revised 11 December 2011.

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