Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) encouraged Berlioz (1803–1869) to write Harold en Italie. The tale of the creation of Harold in Italyhas often been told,yet it remains a fascinating confluence of celebrity, musical roots, literary inspiration and, above all, the composer's own quixotic personality. According to Berlioz' Memoires, Paganini had acquired a "superb viola", a Stradivarius(the so-called "Paganini-Mendelssohn" ) — "But I have no suitable music. Some are comparatively trivial: the first time the reader encounters Childe Harold’s own words it is in the form of a song ostensibly sung to a harp accompaniment, 19 In the months that followed, Berlioz’s imagination would often give a Byronic slant to what he did or thought. Harold in Italy, Op. Paris: 1848, Œuvre 16 (full score) Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, n.d., as part of Hector Berlioz Werke (1900–07), Serie I, Band II, … Byron is a presiding genius over Berlioz’s Italian journey. 16, symphony in four movements with viola solo composed by Hector Berlioz in 1834. (J'ai un alto merv… Byron and Shelley in Italy Among the major Romantic poets, Byron and Shelley spent the most time in Italy, which was their home during their years of exile, and they became proficient in its language and well-read in its literature. So Berlioz makes no specific references to the content of Byron’s Italian canto. But first a strong caution – the primary source of our information is Berlioz's own fanciful Mémoires. Upon seeing Berlioz’s first movement, however, Paganini found the piece to be insufficiently flashy for his own performance, and he never played it, though he confessed to … But there are links between Childe Harold as a whole, and Harold en Italie. The two first met after a concert of Berlioz's works conducted by Narcisse Girard on 22 December 1833, three years after the premiere of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

You are the only one I can trust for this task." Publication History. Harold in Italy is described as a "symphony", but it began life as a concerto, commissioned in 1834 by Paganini, who wanted a work to show off his newly acquired Stradivarius viola. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage [I stood in Venice] George Gordon Byron - 1788-1824. Would you like to write a solo for viola? Berlioz wrote the piece on commission from the virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini, who had just purchased a Stradivarius viola. It began with an encounter with a Venetian sea-captain who claimed to have commanded the poet’s corvette on his journeys through the Adriatic and the Greek islands. Harold in Italy, Symphony with solo viola in 4 parts ... after motifs from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.