Hector the Ferocious

"A lot of people have been rude about Hector Berlioz," says English Conductor Colin Davis, and he wishes they would quit. Alas, poor Berlioz has suffered more than his share. In 1829, when he was 25, he submitted his passionately theatrical piece for soprano and orchestra, Cleopatre, to the Prix de Rome committee. It was rejected with a scolding from one of the judges, who said, "You refuse to write like everybody else. Even your rhythms are new. You would invent new modulations if such a thing were possible." The story goes that when Gioachino Rossini was shown Berlioz' score for the Symphonic Fantastique, he examined it for five minutes and said, "Thank goodness, this isn't music!" Recently Pierre Boulez complained, only half in jest, that Berlioz "has only got two chords."

That is not true, of course, but even if it were, it would not bother Davis. "It's the what of music that Berlioz is interested in, not the how," explains Davis. "He appeals to me because of his mixture of ferocity and tenderness. And by ferocity I don't mean bloodthirstiness. I mean voltage, energy, fire. I love the explosions, the wildness, the terror in his music. There are very few composers who manage to generate terror. Berlioz really does. He can frighten you."-

Snakish Slide. To prove his point, Davis is currently engaged in a Berlioz bash during a four-week guest stand with the New York Philharmonic at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. At the opening concert, devoted entirely to Berlioz works, the audience clearly got the idea of what Davis means by voltage and terror. The first composition was the overture to Les Francs-Juges, an unfinished opera about the secret vigilante courts that terrorized Germany in the Middle Ages. The overture, as Davis says, "has a sort of white-hot energy. In the middle there is the most pathetic, square melody that is savaged by the rest of the orchestra. It's like some virgin being taken through the most disgraceful scenes."

The overture was followed by the maligned Cleopatre composition, sung by Mezzo Beverly Wolff, and several excerpts from the dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet. The first is charged with imaginative pictorial touches--for example, the snakish slide of the violas and cellos as Cleopatra clasps the asp to her bosom. In Romeo and Juliet, Berlioz shows that he can be as tender with Shakespeare's young lovers as he is terrifying with Cleopatra. Berlioz did not, however, always have to rely on emotional pressure. The overture to the comic opera Beatrice and Benedict, which Davis played at his third concert last week, is a masterpiece of witty understatement that perfectly graces the champagne gaiety of the entire work.

A Golden Age. Berlioz' gift of wit and energy has helped to make him much more popular today than he was in his own time. His music contains almost no padding. As Davis says, "There are no long recapitulations such as you find in Wagner." Another reason for Berlioz' current favor is that he is almost never cloying or sentimental. "His greatest piece is his opera The Trojans," says Davis, "and it sums up the whole work of the man. In that world of Aeneas and his gang, you may swear, and you may pound your fist against the wall, but you accept your fate in the end and you go down with dignity. The ideal of Berlioz' life was to search for a love that didn't really exist on this planet. All his work is a sort of monument to a lost, golden age."

Since the death of Sir Thomas Beecham in 1961, Davis has become Britain's greatest champion of Berlioz. In number of recordings alone, he has already surpassed Sir Thomas and is quickly catching up to another Berlioz specialist, the late Charles Munch. Davis has issued superb versions of the Symphonie Fantastique, L'Enfance du Christ, Beatrice and Benedict, Harold in Italy and a collection of overtures. Last summer he taped a complete Romeo and Juliet. Next year he will record The Trojans and the Requiem.

One of Davis' distinguishing traits as a conductor, whether in the styles of Mozart, Stravinsky, Handel or Berlioz, is that he never settles for the sensational. Like Toscanini, he believes that for any given piece of music there is a basic tempo with which it can be organized. Many conductors speed up here, slow down there, as they see fit. Not Davis. "You can't get a big line if you are going to be distracted by all the beautiful things that happen on the way," he says. "You've got to bow to them but you must not be deviated from your grand purpose. It's like looking at the girls on the street when you're driving: you'd soon have an accident."

Davis has been mentioned as a future candidate for the directorship of the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony. But he is in no hurry. He has just finished his first year as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony, and is under contract for two more years. "Then we will have to see," he says. "I'm still a believer that the best years of a man are between 50 and 75." In that case, Davis will just have to wait. He is only 41.

*Berlioz' concept of the ideal orchestra size was itself fairly frightening: an ensemble of 465 players featuring 242 strings, 30 harps, 30 pianos, 16 French horns and 20 cymbals.

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