Berlioz (1803-1869) - Overture: Le Corsaire
A "corsair"
is either a pirate or a seagoing mercenary, and conjures images of swashbuckling
adventures on the high seas, though perhaps nothing so lurid as the background
to this music's composition. As the story goes, while in Rome in 1831,
Berlioz had word that his latest paramour, Camille Marie Moke, was imminently
to become Madame Pleyel. Understandably upset, Berlioz set off, intent
on murdering her. At Genoa his patience evaporated, so he tried to kill
himself instead. Rescued from the Mediterranean, and somewhat chastened,
he took a holiday in Nice (well, you would, wouldn't you?). Beneath a ruined
coastal tower, it seems he read a pirate romance. These were very popular
back then, and James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Red Rover, was
a particular favourite of Berlioz'. The upshot was that he started sketching
possible stage works. Thirteen years later, under doctor's orders to rest,
he rediscovered that tower and worked these sketches into an overture,
The
Tower of Nice. By the mid-1850s, it had been refined through
Le
Corsaire Rouge to a neat and tidy Le Corsaire.
Sword-slashing
strings and woodwind introduce the three sections, the first of which is
a slow melody of breathtaking extent, the second a bristling, brassy allegro.
Both use the same melodic material. So does the introductory flourish,
at least as far as one can tell without recourse to a score! Towards the
end of the second section, a passage for bassoons punctuated by percussive
chords provokes a return of the slow violin tune, to an agitated accompaniment.
The third section reprises the allegro to even livelier effect, expanding
the bassoons to woodwind with more forceful percussive chords, leading
this time to a huge climax of massed brass, blaring awesomely descending
fragments of the allegro theme. Buckles all a-swash, the music romps brazenly
to a sonorous, chordal conclusion.
.
© Paul Serotsky
37, Mayfield Grove,
Brighouse,
West Yorkshire HD6 4EE
contact@serotsky.f9.co.uk
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