Saint-Petersburg
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Berlioz visited Saint-Petersburg twice, in 1847 and 1867-8; the two visits differed in various respects, and we have accordingly organised this page into two sections:
Note: the dates below are all given according to the Gregorian calendar, which was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar still in use in Russia; for the equivalent Julian dates see the chronology.
Before leaving for Russia Berlioz discussed his trip with several friends and acquaintances, among them Balzac who had himself been to Russia and assured him he would earn a fortune (which Berlioz took with a pinch of salt). Not long before his departure from Paris on 14 February, Berlioz wrote to Balzac accepting his offer of lending him his coat (Correspondance générale no. 1096, hereafter CG for short):
You have been good enough to offer me your fur coat; could you kindly send it to me tomorrow at 41 rue de Provence. I will treat it with care and will return it to you faithfully in four months. The coat I was counting on seems to me much too short and I am particularly worried about getting my legs cold.
He arrived in Saint-Petersburg two weeks later on 28 February. Most of the journey from Prussia to Saint-Petersburg was through snow-bound plains but the last leg of the journey was particularly uncomfortable. In the frontier town of Taurogen he had to change vehicle, from a post chaise to a covered sledge. As David Cairns puts it, "Now not Balzac’s voluminous coat nor the straw packed close round the passengers could keep out the cold during the four interminable days and nights that followed; and the uneven movement of the sledge over the frozen rutted surface threw him about ‘like shot shaken in a bottle’. He could only reflect, as he gazed out over the white wastes, that he was better off than the soldiers of Napoleon’s army on their calamitous retreat, which his uncle had described so long ago." (Berlioz: Volume Two Servitude and Greatness, 1999, p. 371)
When on certain days the bright sunshine allowed me to see at a glance this dreary and dazzling desert, I could not help thinking of the all too famous retreat of our poor army, shattered and bloody as it was; I could imagine seeing our wretched soldiers without clothes, shoes, bread, spirits, emptied of their moral and physical strength, most of them wounded, dragging themselves during the day like ghosts, lying at night without shelter, like corpses, in this dreadful snow, in cold weather even more terrible than what was terrifying me. I could not help wondering how even one of them could have put up with such suffering and emerged alive from this frozen hell... Man must be prodigiously resistant to death. (Memoirs, chapter 55)
On arrival a warm room in a private house on Nevsky Prospect was ready for him, arranged by his sponsors.
Berlioz gave two concerts on 15 and 25 March in the Hall of the Nobility, with identical programmes: the Fête chez Capulet from Roméo et Juliette, the first two parts of La Damnation de Faust, the Apotheosis of the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale and the overture Le Carnaval romain.
A few days after the first concert he wrote to his father about the rapturous reception of his music in Russia (CG no. 1100):
I have been fortunate to succeed in my musical enterprises beyond all expectations. My music is the rage in all classes of Russian society...
I had an excellent orchestra, composed of German players who performed my music with extraordinary fidelity and verve. For the choral contribution the choristers of the theatre, the imperial chapel, and from several regiments of the guard have been placed under my orders, and they have worked perfectly. The impact produced by my last work in particular has been magnificent, a whole number of pieces have been encored, the Empress called me after the first part of the concert, and she and her sons have congratulated me warmly. [...]
The whole Russian aristocracy is showering me with compliments of every kind. They are predicting that my trip to Moscow will be highly successful.
After a no less successful second concert the Russian Empress sent him a diamond ring worth 400 roubles (1600 francs) and the Duchess of Leuchtenberg a hatpin worth 200 roubles (800 francs). "The whole Russian and German press in St Petersburg is on my side, both as regards my compositions and my conducting of the orchestra, which they did not believe capable of the feats they accomplished", Berlioz wrote to his friend Auguste Morel (CG no. 1101), just before leaving for Moscow, where he gave only one concert.
Before leaving for Moscow, at the invitation of the Grand Duke Alexander Berlioz conducted the Apothéose of his Symphonie funèbre et triomphale at a musical festival to benefit the poor, held on 27 March.
On his return to Saint-Petersburg he gave two concerts at the Imperial Theatre on 5 and 12 May. The programme of both concerts consisted of a complete performance of Roméo et Juliette and the first two movements of Harold en Italie. The concerts were a great success with the audience; but conducting his Roméo et Juliette specially had a profound emotional effect on him, as he wrote to Liszt (CG no. 1108):
At this moment I am sad, sad to the point of death. I have been seized with one of my fits of isolation; it is the performance of Roméo at the Imperial Theatre which has provoked it. In the middle of the adagio I felt my heart tightening; that’s it, and heaven knows how long it is going to grip me. What a deplorable temperament I have!...
During his first visit to St Petersburg, after he had given his Roméo et Juliette concert, Berlioz paid a visit to the Imperial Chapel, arranged by the Grand Duchess of Leuchtenberg, so that he could experience the incomparable choir in a liturgical setting, performing an unaccompanied mass by Bortniansky. Berlioz wrote to his sister Adèle about this visit in a letter dated 7 May 1847 (CG no. 1106):
Yesterday the Grand Duchess most graciously ordered a performance of mass in her chapel for my own private benefit, to let me see and hear her wonderful court singers performing their religious function – they leave far behind those poor wretches of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. I am still in a state of great agitation and trembling from the indescribable emotion I experienced. These are truly celestial choruses, and infinity opens up before anyone who hears their strange and sublime harmony. I would not advise anyone gifted with any degree of sensitivity and acquainted with deep grief to expose himself to such an experience; it is enough to break your heart and tear out your soul.
At a court concert held around 20 May to bid farewell to the bass Versing, who had sung the parts of Friar Lawrence and Mephistopheles in his concerts, Berlioz offered his Symphonie fantastique and bid his own farewells, amid rumours that the Tsar was soon to offer him an exalted post.
Berlioz left Saint-Petersburg on 22 May, stopping on the way at Riga (at the time part of Russia) and Berlin to give concerts, before he was eventually back in Paris towards the end of June.
West corner of Nevsky Prospect/Malaya Morskaya
(Wawelburg building)
East corner of Nevsky Prospect/Malaya Morskaya
On his 1847 visit to St Petersburg Berlioz was lodged in a private house on Nevsky Prospect. His address, as given in a letter to his father Dr Berlioz, was "Maison Kosikowski, perspective Newski au coin de la petite Morskoïa (Pétersbourg)" (CG no. 1100).
We do not know if Maison Kosikowski was the building at the east or the west corner of Nevsky Prospect and Malaya Morskaya streets. The one at the east corner seems to date from the mid-19th century, so it could perhaps be the one Berlioz stayed in; the one at the west corner is the Wawelburg building, which was built perhaps as a bank somewhere around 1900; architect: Peretyatkovich.
Nevsky Prospect in the early 20th century
This old postcard is in our own collection.
Filarmonia (former Hall of the Nobility)
Berlioz gave two concerts in 1847 and six concerts in 1867/68 in the Hall of the Nobility, which is still extant. It was built from 1834 to 1839 by P. Jaquau, and occasionally served as a concert hall until it became the seat of the Philharmonic Society in 1921. Since then the St. Petersburg Philharmonic performs there, and it is known as the Bolshoi zal (big hall) of the Filarmonia imeni Shostakovicha (Shostakovich Philharmonia). The upper storey was added at a later stage. The interior also seems to date from a later period.
The Conservatoire (place of the former Imperial Theatre)
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Berlioz gave two of his 1847 concerts in the Imperial Theatre, referred to as the Grand Theatre in his correspondence. The Theatre stood on the site where the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatoire now stands. It was first built in 1775-83 by A. Rinaldi and rebuilt in 1802 and 1835 by architects Z.-F. Toma de Tomon and A. K. Kavos respectively. The Conservatoire building dates from 1881 to 1896 and was designed by Vladimir V. Nicolas.
The Imperial Theatre in 1809
The Imperial Theatre in 1849
Glinka Capella (formerly the Imperial Chapel)
Berlioz attended a performance of a mass by Bortniansky here during his first visit to Saint-Petersburg.
The origins of Glinka Capella date back to the latter part of the 15th century, to a particular group of performers who traditionally chanted orthodox liturgy solo and in ensemble, unaccompanied by any instruments, known variously as the Tsar’s Singing Clerics, the Court Singers, the Imperial Court Chapel, and the Glinka State Capella. In the19th century for a brief period Glinka was the choral director of the Imperial Chapel. He was appointed to this post shortly after the triumphant première of his opera A Life for the Tsar in St Petersburg in December 1836. But three years later, following a marital crisis and separation from his wife in l839 Glinka also resigned from the Imperial Chapel.
The Glinka Capella of today is a building dating from 1887/89 designed by Leonti Benois, but it stands at the same place as the building where Berlioz went to hear Bortniansky’s mass.
Berlioz’s second and last visit to Saint-Petersburg was in 1867-1868 at the Grand Duchess Helen of Russia’s personal invitation to give six concerts there. By late 1867 he was suffering from poor health and a nervous intestinal disorder which had weakened him considerably. He left Paris on 12 November, spent the 14th and 15th in Berlin en route (CG nos. 3299, 3304), and arrived in Saint-Petersburg on 17 November on a cold snowy day. His hostess, the Grand Duchess, had arranged for him to be met at the railway station and taken to the Michel [Mikhailovski] Palace where a superb apartment, complete with French-speaking servants, had been prepared for him. In his letter dated 18 November to one of his nieces, Nanci (Adèle’s daughter), he writes (CG no. 3305):
This evening I expect my vast sitting room to be full of people. It is snowing heavily; it is already a foot deep in front of my windows. It goes without saying that I am not venturing outside. I have servants who speak French and have nothing to worry about. But I have just heard that the rehearsals at the Conservatoire will be at 9 in the morning, which is a problem – I find it so difficult to get up.
Heavens, what snow! I can see swarms of sparrows and pigeons looking for grains of barley dropped by horses in the snow, without fear of seeing their legs freeze. People ride by in sledges with their heads covered by heavy hoods. And this vast square, this frozen silence. In a few days all these impressions will disappear, I will be steeped in music and will not be thinking of anything else. I really had to leave Paris to come back to life! ...
WHAT SNOW!!!
The next day Berlioz began preparing for his first concert which took place on 28 November. The programme consisted of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, the Chorus of Priests from Mozart’s Magic Flute, the overture to Benvenuto Cellini from his own first opera, Susanna’s aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and the overture to Weber’s Oberon.
Apart from his own music, of which Berlioz was pressed to include more than he originally intended, almost all other works he included in his concerts during his second visit to Russia were those by his musical ‘Gods’: chiefly Beethoven and Gluck, and also Weber.
The day after the second concert, which took place on 7 December, he wrote to his uncle Marmion about his success so far (CG no. 3310):
I am caught here in a musical whirlwind which I could hardly describe to you. The public, the artists, the press, the Grand Duchess, Prince Constantine, everybody congratulates and praises me and gives me the most gratifying support. The second concert took place yesterday in the great Hall of the Nobility (where I gave my first concert twenty years ago [15 March 1847]). My entrance was greeted, like the start of the concert, with interminable applause; I did not know how to react, and after taking bows to the right, the left, in front, behind, to the orchestra and the chorus, I had to stand still and wait for this eruption of enthusiasm to come to an end. I have been forced to change my second programme and to introduce in spite of its huge difficulties my Symphonie fantastique. This vast work achieved a dazzling success, all the movements were greeted with applause and the March to the scaffold was encored. Let me say that the orchestra was superb; I had asked for three rehearsals; as a result the performance was flawless. You had to see this audience after the symphony! I was recalled more than six times; some fanatical enthusiasts were embracing me furiously, others kissed my hand, the orchestra made a terrific noise by hitting their violins and basses with their bows and I who had not heard this symphony for more than ten years [on 22 February 1855 in Weimar] was struggling to contain myself and not yield to the temptation which the Scene in the fields had aroused of bursting into tears.
In addition to the Symphonie fantastique, the second concert included Beethoven’s 2nd Leonora overture and excerpts from Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride.
Berlioz’s birthday on 11 December was celebrated in style by his Russian admirers. "Her Imperial Highness is showering me with generous gifts," he wrote to Madame Estelle Fornier two days later; "the day before yesterday she sent me an album covered in malachite; I could not see the reason for this; it was my birthday, and I don’t know how she found out. In the evening the musicians put on a dinner with 150 guests. I leave you to imagine all the toasts; there were many men of letters. All these gentlemen speak French."
His third concert was on 14 December in which he conducted his overture Le Carnaval romain and the Rêverie et caprice, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the second act of Gluck’s Orphée and Wieniawski’s violin concerto, with Wieniawski himself as the soloist.
On 28 December Berlioz gave his fourth concert, which included Beethoven’s Eroica, his own overture Les Francs-juges and the Offertoire from his Requiem, and excerpts from the first act of Gluck’s Alceste. He then went to Moscow to give two concerts there and returned to Saint-Petersburg for his fifth and sixth concerts on 25 January and 8 February respectively.
The fifth concert comprised the overture to Weber’s Der Freischütz and Agathe’s air from the same opera, Paganini’s first violin concerto, Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Fifth Piano Concerto, and an air from Haydn’s Creation. His sixth and final concert consisted entirely of his own music: Harold en Italie, and excerpts from Roméo et Juliette and La Damnation de Faust.
By mid-January the concert engagements, cold weather, travels to and from Moscow and his illness were taking their toll and he was impatiently looking forward to going home – for its warm climate and not for the likely reception of his music by the press if he were to give a concert, as he wrote to his friend Madame Massart on 18 January (CG no. 3330):
The programme for my concert next Saturday [25 January] is fixed. I have nothing to do with it, which is just as well, as the next and last concert is entirely my own music. What a joy it will be when I can say to myself: "I am leaving for Paris in three days, that is at the beginning of February." I cannot put up with this climate. I suffered less in Moscow. And what enthusiasm they all showed! [...]
What are you talking about, telling me to give you a concert in Paris? Were I to give a concert to my friends, spending a mere three thousand francs, the press would insult me all the more.
After seeing you in Paris I will go to Saint-Symphorien [where Madame Fornier at the time lived with one of her sons and his family] and from there to Monaco to lie amid the violets and sleep in the sun. I suffer so much, my pain is so ceaseless, that I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to die now, I have enough to live.
Berlioz left Saint-Petersburg by train on 13 February and arrived in Paris four days later, after a much shorter time compared to the 1847 visit: transport was now faster, and this time he did not stop on the way.
The Mikhailovski Palace
Berlioz stayed here during his second visit to St Petersburg in 1867/68. The palace was built from 1819 to 1825 by Carlo Rossi, and now houses the Russian Museum. Berlioz’s apartment had a view on the square and the Hall of the Nobility opposite.
The Mariinsky Theatre in our time
The Mariinsky Theatre in the 19th century
The Mariinsky Theatre in the 18th century
The Mariinsky Theatre, known during the Soviet Union era as the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre, reverted to its original name in 1992. The present building, which dates back to 1857, originally housed another theatre ("Opéra Russe") but was remodeled and taken over by the Mariinsky company. During pre-revolutionary times the theatre enjoyed royal patronage and has played host to some of Russia’s most celebrated classical performers.
Berlioz attended a performance of Glinka’s first opera A Life for the Tsar at the Mariinsky Theatre on 5 February 1868. He was seated in Kologrivov’s loge with Balakirev and Stasov. He had seen this opera 20 year earlier at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre during his first visit to Russia in 1847.
According to Rimsky-Korsakov Berlioz left before the end of the second act. Stasov wrote: "we were denied all those vital and profound comments which we were expecting from a man who, twenty two years earlier, had shown such enthusiasm for this opera. It was now too much of a strain for Berlioz to remain seated for a whole evening in a theatre (he used to retire at nine o’clock)". (Footnote from CG no. 3335, vol. 7, p. 670)
Related pages on this site:
The Russia that Berlioz visited, by Dr Linda Edmondson and
Hector Berlioz as reflected in the Russian press of his time, by Dr Elena Dolenko
© 2003-2008 (unless otherwise stated) Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the photos, engravings and information on Berlioz in Russia pages.
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First
visit: 1847