Index of letters of Berlioz cited

Introduction
Chronological table

This page is also available in French

Introduction

    Well over 3,000 letters of Berlioz have been published to date in the eight volumes of his Correspondance générale (1972-2003; CG for short), details of which are to be found elsewhere on this site, and in the volume Nouvelles lettres de Berlioz, de sa famille, de ses contemporains (2016; NL for short). Taken as a collection these letters constitute a source for the life and times of the composer of exceptional value and interest, and deserve to be reckoned among his other writings as one of his most significant literary achievements.

    The letters have been extensively used and cited throughout this site, to illustrate the composer’s wide-ranging musical activities, travels, and relations with friends, colleagues and contemporaries, in France and through many countries in Europe — Italy, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Russia, and England. A number of pages include listings of Berlioz’s correspondence with particular individuals: James Davison (with full citation and translation of the known letters), Hippolyte Lecourt, Franz Liszt, Auguste Morel, Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, and Richard Wagner. Two special pages reproduce excerpts of the letters concerning aspects of the composer’s activities as writer and music critic: the first relates to the publication in 1858-1859 of fragments of his Mémoires in the journal Le Monde Illustré, and the second with his career as contributor to the Journal des Débats during the period 1834 to 1863.

    Several pages are also devoted to the exceptional holdings of the Hector Berlioz Museum of autograph letters of the composer and of his family:

• Letters of the composer at the Hector Berlioz Museum — Chronological tables
• Letters of the composer at the Hector Berlioz Museum — Dating
• Letters of the composer’s family at the Hector Berlioz Museum, with a companion page, Letters of the composer’s family at the Bibliothèque nationale de France

    Several autograph letters of Berlioz are reproduced on this site: see CG nos. 277, 1598ter, 1659, 1759, 1853, 2198, 2286, 3251, 3344, 3368, and a letter of 1865.

    On the forgeries of Berlioz letters which are in circulation, see also on this site the article by Richard Macnutt, ‘Berlioz Forgeries’.

    This page collects in a series of chronological tables all the citations on this site of excerpts from the letters, with links to the pages where they are cited; the numbering is that of the Correspondance générale. The majority of the citations listed below are in English translation, except for those in the page referred under the name Excerpts — a shorthand for the full title, Extraits de la correspondance du compositeur (concerning his activities as music critic to the Journal des Débats), in which the citations are in French only. Links to the corresponding citations of the original French text of the remaining letters may be found on the French version of this page.

Chronological table

1821

1822

1822/1823?

1824

1825

1826

1827

1828

1829

1830

1831

1832

1833

1834

1835

1836

1837

1838

1839

1840

1841

1842

1843

1844

1845

1846

1847

1848

1849

1850

1851

1852

1853

1854

1855

1856

1857

1858

1859

1860

1861

1862

1863

1864

1865

1866

1867

1868

The Hector Berlioz Website was created by Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin on 18 July 1997;
Index of letters of Berlioz cited created on 1 September 2007; frequent updates thereafter; new enlarged version on 8 March 2016.

© Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb. All rights of reproduction reserved.

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