Berlioz in London
Crystal Palace – 1851 Exhibition
In April 1851 Berlioz was appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Trade to serve as representative of France on the international commission examining musical instruments at the celebrated Universal Exhibition in London. He stayed there from May till the end of July.
The exhibition hall, nicknamed Crystal Palace by the satirical magazine Punch, because of the enormous amount of glass used in its construction, was erected in Hyde Park. Ever since the hall has been known as Crystal Palace.
The Jury’s task was very intensive and their daily schedule quite full; they had to listen to hundreds of musical instruments of all sorts exhibited by many countries from around the world – East as well as West. The Jury’s job was to give prizes to the best in each category. In June Berlioz wrote to his sister Adèle (Correspondance générale no. 1417, hereafter abbreviated to CG):
There are days when I am overcome with despondency and feel on the point of returning to Paris. No one could imagine a more dreadful chore than the one I have been specially selected for. I have to listen to wind and brass instruments. My head is bursting with the sounds of hundreds of wretched contraptions, each more out of tune than the rest, with three or four exceptions.
Apart from this chore, his visit to London was very pleasant. He received invitations from many people in the high echelons of society – the Lord Mayor of London, the Mayor of Birmingham, directors of theatres, musicians, organisers of concerts and so forth. He would sometimes spend Sundays in the country to take a break.
He was very impressed by the Exhibition itself, as he said to his son Louis in a letter (CG no. 1415, 1 June):
This universal exhibition, the competition of all nations, and especially the vast Crystal Place where everything is exhibited, these are wonders which I will not attempt to describe to you.
The whole of the "21st evening" in Berlioz’s Les Soirées de l’orchestre is devoted to his experiences in London during his stay in 1851. He has very little to say of his role as judge of musical instruments on the Jury, but concentrates on more picturesque aspects, such as the Great Exhibition itself, musical life in London, and the exotic music (especially Chinese) that was to be heard at the Exhibition from various parts of the world. But pride of place in his narrative goes to the extraordinary experience he had at the Anniversary Meeting of the Charity Children which he heard at St Paul’s Cathedral one evening, sung by a chorus of 6500 children. He went home after the concert but was so moved that he was unable to get to sleep and decided to get up and walk to Crystal Palace very early in the morning (see also 27 Queen Anne Street). The Palace was still closed to visitors, but, as he relates:
The guard which watches over the gates of this Louvre were used to seeing me at all sorts of strange hours, and so let me walk in. The deserted inside of the Exhibition palace at seven in the morning was a spectacle of original grandeur: the vast solitude, the silence, the gentle light coming from the transparent roof, the dried-up fountains, the silent organs, the motionless trees, this harmonious display of opulent goods brought from the four corners of the world by rival peoples. These ingenious creations, the products of peace; the engines of destruction that brought war to mind; all the causes of movement and noise – while human beings were absent, everything seemed to be holding a mysterious conversation together in the strange language that can be heard with the ear of the mind. [...]
At some point during his contemplation and walk around the hall, Berlioz suddenly heard a sound:
a noise rather like that of rainfall spread under the vast galleries; it was the waterfalls and fountains which the wardens had just turned on. The crystal castles, the artificial rocks, all quivered under the flow of their liquid pearls; the policemen, these worthy guards without arms, were going to their stations...
The palace was getting ready to receive the visitors of the day:
The silence had kept me awake, but these sounds made me feel drowsy; the need for sleep had become irresistible; I came to sit before Erard’s large piano, that musical marvel of the Exhibition. I leaned on the ornate lid, and I was about to fall asleep when Thalberg touched me on the shoulder, saying: "The jury is assembling, colleague! Take heart – today we have thirty two musical snuffboxes, twenty four accordions, and thirteen bombardons to examine.
On return to Paris he was invited to attend the week-long Paris Fête, or what Berlioz referred to in one of his letters as "les fêtes anglo-parisiennes". The event started on 1st August; the Executive Committee of the Exhibition, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, had all been invited by Louis Napoleon and the city of Paris. According to John Davis, it included "a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville, a reception hosted by Napoleon at St Cloud, a fête at the British Embassy, a review at the Champs de Mars, and a performance at the Théâtre Français, including a ballet entitled Crystal Palace" (The Great Exhibition, pp. 168-169).
Berlioz later wrote up the Jury’s report on musical instruments; it was published in Paris in 1854 and again in 1855. You will find this report in its entirety on this site in the original French and in an English translation.
While Berlioz was in London he had toyed with the idea of staging a Musical Festival at Crystal Palace, where he would conduct various works including his own Te Deum, written in 1848-9 but not yet performed, but his plans did not materialise.
During his 1855 visit Berlioz went to a concert held at the Crystal Palace. Ganz quotes a letter by Marie Recio, Berlioz’s second wife, in which she tells her correspondent of her admiration for the Palace (Berlioz in London, p. 202; the French text is in CG vol. V, p. 123 n.1). By that time Crystal Palace had been ‘moved’ to Sydenham (see below), and a large concert hall had been erected in the central transept of the building. This hall held so many people that only a small charge was made for admission.
As a measure of Berlioz’s fame in London, it is interesting to note that in 1851 one of his correspondents (his name is not known) had sent him a letter with the envelope addressed: To Monsieur Berlioz in London, and the letter reached its destination! In his letter of 11 June 1851 Berlioz writes to this friend (CG no. 1418):
I am answering you by return post; don’t accuse me of negligence; your letter had only the words: ‘To M. Berlioz in London’ written on, and so it went round in circles before reaching me, hence my delay in replying.
Crystal Palace
This engraving dates from the 19th century.
Crystal Palace
This steel engraving dating from the 19th century is in our own
collection.
Crystal Palace
This 1951 print taken from an original Great Exhibition
illustration is in our own collection.
Crystal Palace
This image shows the lid from a contemporary pot of meat-paste,
representing the Crystal Palace.
The original is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.
One of the entrances to the main hall
The original copy of this engraving is in the Guildhall
Library, City of London / The Bridgeman Art Library.
This engraving of the entrance to the main hall has been reproduced courtesy of Dr John Davis from page x of his book The Great Exhibition.
A glass fountain inside the main hall
A copy of this engraving is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
An exhibition gallery – household items
The original copy of this engraving is in the BBC Hulton Picture Library.
Title page of a music sheet
commemorating the Exhibition
The original copy of this engraving is in the BBC Hulton Picture Library.
Concert hall at Crystal Palace
This engraving, showing the
Handel Festival, was published in the
Illustrated London News in 1859.
Concert hall at Crystal Palace
This photo shows a great "Festival Concert",
possibly one of the "Handel Triennial Fests", given in the concert
hall under the direction of Frederic Hymen Cowen; it was published in the Musica (vol.
III, 1905; Publications Pierre Lafitte, Paris). We are
most grateful to our friend Gene Halaburt for sending us this picture.
Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1905
This old postcard is in our own collection
© 2002-2007 Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the photos, engravings and information on this and other Berlioz in London pages.
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