Subiaco
Berlioz liked Subiaco very much; he visited it and stayed there a number of times (see the Chronology). He describes it thus in his Memoirs (chapter 38):
Subiaco is a small town of 4000 inhabitants, curiously built around a mountain in the shape of a sugar-loaf. The river Anio, which lower down forms the waterfalls of Tivoli, is the source of all its wealth as it supplies a few rather decrepit factories.
In some places this river flows through a narrow gorge. The emperor Nero had a dam built by means of a huge wall, of which a few traces are still visible; by blocking the water this wall caused the formation above the village of a very deep lake. Hence the name of the town, Sub-Lacu."
And in a letter dated 17 September 1831 to his friend Ferdinand Hiller, Berlioz explains what attracted him to a place like Subiaco (Correspondance générale no. 241):
Are you still in your retreat at the Bois de Boulogne? I am going back to mine at Subiaco. There is nothing I like more than this life of wandering among woods and rocks, with all these good-natured peasants, sleeping during the day beside a torrent, and in the evening dancing the saltarello with the men and women who frequent our inn. I entertain them with my guitar; before I came they would only dance to the sound of the tambourine, so they are delighted with this tuneful instrument. I return there to escape from the boredom which is killing me here in Rome.
On one of his many visits to Subiaco and its surroundings, Berlioz built a little pyramid with stones on a big hill overlooking the river Anio. He wrote about it in his Memoirs (chapter 37), while describing the visit:
Facing it (sc. Subiaco), on the other bank of the river Anio, there is a large mountain shaped like the back of a whale, where nowadays it is still possible to see a small pyramid of stones which I patiently built one day when I was afflicted with spleen. French painters, dedicated admirers of these solitary haunts, have graciously called it after me.
A few years later in a letter dated 27 September 1836 to Liszt, who was planning to go to Italy, Berlioz asked him to go and see the pyramid on his behalf (Correspondance générale no. 478):
If you go to Italy, you must go to Subiaco. If you go to Subiaco, enquire about the pyramid which I built on the tall rock on the left side of the Anio, and go to see it for my sake; I have heard that the shepherds have not demolished it completely.
Berlioz composed La Captive on one of his visits to Subiaco. As he relates in the Memoirs (chapter 39):
I remember one day watching my friend Lefebvre the architect working in the inn at Subiaco where we were staying; a movement of his elbow knocked down a book which was lying on the table where he was drawing, and I picked it up. It contained the Orientales of Victor Hugo, which happened to be open at the page with La Captive. I read this exquisite poem, and turning to Lefebvre
— If I had ruled paper, I said, I would write the music for this piece, because I can hear it.
— No problem, I will make you some.
Lefebvre then took a ruler and quickly drew a few staves, on which I jotted the melody and the bass line of this little song; I then put the manuscript in my wallet and forgot about it. A fortnight later, when back in Rome, they were singing at the director’s and La Captive came back to my mind.
La Captive was sung by Mademoiselle Vernet, the director’s daughter, with piano accompaniment, and became an instant hit: soon almost everybody at the Villa Medici was singing it, including the servants! On his return to Paris, Berlioz developed and orchestrated the song, but it only reached its final form in 1848.
It was also in Subiaco that Berlioz finished the composition of Rob Roy that he had sketched in Nice in May 1831.
Unless otherwise specified, the pictures reproduced on this page have been scanned from a postcard and a book in our own collection. © Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin. All rights of reproduction reserved.
A panoramic view of Subiaco
Village of Olevano, near Subiaco
This is a painting by Corot (1827) and is entitled View
of Olevano. It was one of the hill-top villages visited by Berlioz during
his wanderings in the Roman Campagna and the foot-hills of the Abruzzi.
A panoramic view of Subiaco in 2004
We are grateful to our friend Pepijn van Doesburg for sending us the above photograph, taken by himself.
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