ALS in French, signed “H. Berlioz,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.25 x 7, September 3, 1830. Handwritten letter to Edouard Rocher, ecstatically expressing his love for the pianist Marie 'Camille' Moke and the planned first performance of Symphonie Fantastique. Rocher has no doubt heard that Berlioz has won first prize in the Prix de Rome (translated): "I am now unburdened by any worries on that score; I have so many others; you can guess on what score. Yes my dear Edward all my worries are focused on her, on my ravishing sylph, my adored Camille. My parents as you perhaps know have consented to our marriage...Her mother is only temporarily opposed to our union; she wants at all costs for me to be further advanced in my career...But still, I see her 2 or 3 times a week, she loves me, she loves me. Can you believe it? I, who have never been loved by anyone!...Such an angel! A talent perhaps without equal in Europe!...If only you knew how this love began! You wouldn't believe it; I was born for an extraordinary life; the unfortunate Smithson is still here and is sinking lower and lower. Oh my angel, my Camille!...I bless the moment when [our love] began." Camille will come to a performance at the Théatre italien, "where they will perform a new composition that I am writing...On 21 November following I shall give my great concert to give a hearing to Simphonie Fantastique." However, Berlioz needs money for all of this, and asks Rocher for a loan, which he can easily pay back once the Prix de Rome prize money comes through. Addressed on the integral leaf in Berlioz's hand. In very good to fine condition, with scattered light foxing, and seal-related paper loss to the integral address leaf affecting a few words of text. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from PSA/DNA.
Berlioz had interrupted his three-year obsession with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson—whom he had not yet met—to fall deeply in love with the prodigiously talented Belgian pianist Marie 'Camille' Moke, and they became engaged. After Berlioz set off for the residence in Rome—a condition of his receipt of the Prix de Rome—he learned that Camille had broken off the engagement in favor of the wealthy Camille Pleyel, heir to the Pleyel piano manufacturing company. Berlioz conceived an elaborate plan to kill them both—acquiring poisons, a disguise, and setting off to return to Paris—but abandoned the vengeful scheme at Nice. He and Smithson would meet at last in December 1832, and were married in the following year.
The letter also refers to the projected first performance of Symphonie Fantastique, which was inspired by Smithson, at the Paris Conservatoire on December 5th. The success of the Symphony was to be a landmark event in Berlioz's career, and in the Romantic movement as a whole: Leonard Bernstein later described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature. A remarkable letter, recorded as no. 174 in Berlioz's Correspondance générale.
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