Nice
It was during his stay in Florence in April 1831 that Berlioz received the news of his betrayal by Camille Moke his fiancée and decided to rush back to Paris to take revenge; years later Berlioz gave a light-hearted account of the episode in the Memoirs (chapter 34), though at the time the insult hurt him deeply. He travelled via Genoa and reached Nice, but on his way wiser counsels prevailed. He abandoned his plans for a violent revenge and instead spent a month at Nice where he composed the overture King Lear; he had just read Shakespeare’s play during his stay in Florence.
Berlioz later remembered his stay in Nice as the happiest period of his life, and he returned there twice. The first time was in September 1844, when on the advice of his friend Amussat the doctor he spent a few weeks there recovering from stress and was able to revisit the places for which he had such fond memories (Memoirs, chapter 53):
It was with deep emotion that I revisited the places where I had been thirteen years earlier, during another and different convalescence, at the start of my stay in Italy… I swam a great deal in the sea and made many excursions to the vicinity of Nice, Villefranche, Beaulieu, Cimiez, and the Lighthouse. I resumed my exploration of the rocks along the coast where I found, still slumbering in the sun, familiar old cannons. I saw again fresh and inviting bays, clad with sea-weeds, where I used to bathe. The room where in 1831 I had written the overture to King Lear was occupied by an English family, so I set up my quarters in a tower leaning against the rock of the Ponchettes, above the house.
During that stay he composed the first version of an overture, which was originally called La Tour de Nice [The Tower of Nice]. The work was subsequently revised between 1846 and 1851 and renamed Le Corsaire.
In a letter to his Uncle Marmion, dated 12 March 1867 (Correspondance générale no. 3227), Berlioz looks back again to his happy visits to Nice:
Your letter caused me a great deal of pleasure; I shared in the joy you are experiencing of living quietly by the sea in this adorable city of Nice; if I was able to I would gladly come and keep you company. I have already been there twice; I stayed in the district of the Ponchettes. On the first occasion I was living at the Clerici house, and on the second in the tower which is above and against the rock. That is where I wrote (though did not compose – I would always compose by the sea), my overture to King Lear, some thirty five years ago now. Alas! Alas! it is still a youthful work but its author is rather old. […]
Berlioz’s second and final return visit to Nice, almost exactly a year after the letter to his uncle, was less happy – on coming back to Paris from his last trip to Russia in February 1868 he insisted on going once again to Nice, but soon after his arrival there at the beginning of March he suffered a fall, followed by a stroke, and had to return to Paris. He never recovered fully.
Berlioz admired the scenery in this sea-port, which at the time of his first visit in 1831 was part of Italy. In a letter to his friends in Paris early in May (Correspondance générale no. 223), he writes:
[…] I have a delightful room with windows overlooking the sea. I have got used to the continuous moan of the waves. When I open my window in the morning, it is wonderful to watch the crests approaching like the undulating mane of a squadron of white horses. I go to sleep to the sound of the breaking waves which crash against the rock on which my house is built.
The location of Nice makes it a really delightful little town; the sea and mountains are fresh and pink-coloured. Occasionally, and at the risk of breaking my limbs, I go for excursions among the rocks. The other day I discovered the ruins of a tower built on the edge of the precipice; there is a small open space in front of it, where I lie down in the sun and look out at sea watching ships arriving from afar, I count the fishermen’s boats and marvel at that golden path of rays which, according to Thomas Moore, must lead to some bright isle of rest!* Actually it is in real life the subject of the lithograph of our melodies; yes, Gounet, it is exactly that. […]
* Note: this is a quotation from Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies, from the poem entitled How dear to me the hour (London, 2nd ed. 1822, p. 27). The full poem reads:
How dear to me the hour when day-light dies,
And sunbeams melt along the silent sea,
For then sweet dreams of other days arise,
And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee.And, as I watch the line of light, that plays
Along the smooth wave tow’rd the burning west,
I long to tread that golden path of rays,
And think ’twould lead to some bright isle of rest!
Unless otherwise specified, all the pictures reproduced on this page have been scanned from postcards and books in our own collection. © Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin. All rights of reproduction reserved.
Nice in the 19th century
This engraving is scanned from Promenade des Anglais, Nice
1833-1933.
The Ponchettes in 1845
The above engraving is scanned from Promenade des Anglais, Nice
1833-1933. The road which leads to the Tower of Ponchettes (see below) is now in the old town of Nice, lined with beautiful old flat-roofed
houses and art galleries.
The Ponchettes
La Tour des
Ponchettes (c. 1835)
overlooking the house where Berlioz stayed in 1831
The above lithograph is by Paul-Emile Barbéri (c. 1835) and is in the Musée Masséna, Nice, France. In his Les Soirées de l’Orchestre, Berlioz refers to this tower as the Tower of the Ponchettes (Tour des Ponchettes), but it is locally known as the Bellanda Tower. The road which leads to the tower and the rock against which it leans still bear the name of Les Ponchettes.
The original Bellanda Tower was pulled down by King Louis in 1844. When Nice became French in 1860 a new one was built, which is now the home of the naval museum.
Bellanda Tower, built in 1860
This photo of Bellanda Tower is scanned from Promenade
des Anglais, Nice 1833-1933, a copy of which is in our own collection.
Plaque on Bellanda Tower commemorating Berlioz’s stay in Nice in 1831 and 1844
The text on the upper section of the plaque is quoted from Berlioz’s Memoirs: ‘The room where in 1831 I had written the overture to King Lear was occupied by an English family, so I set up my quarters in a tower leaning against the rock of the Ponchettes, above the house’ (see also above). The lower section reads: ‘This plaque was installed thanks to the Association of Students of the Nice Conservatoire on 6 November 1932’.
We are most grateful to Mr Ian Woolf for sending us the above
photo, taken by himself.
Berlioz’s bust in the Jardin Albert Premier in Nice
We are most grateful to Mr Ian Woolf for sending us the above photo, taken by himself.
© 2003-2008 (unless otherwise stated) Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the pictures and information on this page.
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