In the fifth volume of Irish Melodies (Dublin, 1813), the Irish poet, Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), spins a brief ballad ("You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride") about a village beauty of low station who marries the stranger, William. When William} insists that they must seek their fortunes elsewhere, Ellen—Hélène—becomes a heartsore wanderer until she discovers that her husband is Lord of Rosna and the possessor of a fine castle. In his translation of the poem, Berlioz's friend, Thomas Gounet (1801 - 1869), makes explicit what the English words merely imply, that is, that the story is widely told. Hence, Berlioz indicates that his ballad, a duet, is for "deux chasseurs," which prompts the introductory evocation of hunting horns before the rustics rehearse the tale yet again in strophic fashion. The happy ending justifies a jaunty setting lending verve and color to the picturesquely legendary. Indeed, from "Hélène"'s sprightly charm one would never guess that Berlioz was in the throes of a cataclysmic passion for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, soon to be revealed as the femme inspiratrice of the hallucinatory Symphonie fantastique (1830) and who would become his wife on 3 October 1833. Composed with piano accompaniment between May and December 1829, this work was published by Maurice Schlesinger in 1830 as No. 2 of the Neuf Mélodies irlandaises. Berlioz thought sufficiently highly of "Hélène" to arrange it for men's voices and small orchestra in January 1844.

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Chant sacré, for tenor, male chorus & piano or orchestra (Neuf Mélodies irlandaises), H. 44 (Op.2, No.6)

Berlioz was never one to allow a good idea to languish. The Prayer from his second attempt to compose a prize-winning cantata, Herminie, for the Prix de Rome competition in 1828 was adapted the following year to words by the Irish poet, Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852)—"Thou Art, O God!" from Sacred Songs (Dublin, 1824), translated by Berlioz's friend, Thomas Gounet (1801 - 1869). A breathless opening gives way to harmonies of swelling sweetness, and an impassioned central recitative extols the glories of creation before the hushed opening returns to rise in a solemn apotheosis. Curiously—from this professed atheist—it is a mood which recurs in numerous small pieces throughout Berlioz's work and finds its ultimate expression in the quieter moments of L'Enfance du Christ (1854). In addition to the initial version for tenor or soprano soloist, chorus, and piano, Berlioz thought enough of the Chant sacré to arrange it for chorus and orchestra in 1843, and to prepare a version, now lost, for orchestra and six wind instruments made or invented by Adolphe Sax (1814 - 1894), including saxophone. The latter was performed on February 3, 1844, with Sax himself as one of the soloists.

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3.Chant guerrier, H.41

Competing for the Prix de Rome for the fifth time in 1830, Berlioz was en loge in an attic apartment of the Institut de France when the July Revolution broke out. He completed his competition cantata—La Mort de Sardanaple—as grapeshot peppered the roof and a cannonball slammed the Institute's façade. Handing in his work, he emerged at five on the afternoon of the 29th to find the fighting all but over and the Revolution a fait accompli. In chapter 29 of his Memoirs, he recalls roaming the streets of Paris days later and hearing his own Chant guerrier sung in the courtyard of the Palais Royal by an impromptu group of perhaps a dozen young men. Composed the year before and published in early 1830 as No. 3 of the Neuf mélodies irlandaises to lyrics by Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), the Irish poet's mixture of romance and revolutionary sentiment survived translation by Berlioz's friend, Thomas Gounet, to exactly fit the situation. Given wings by Berlioz, this rousing fight song is rounded with an elegiac refrain memorializing the fallen. Indeed, the Neuf mélodies may, in a small way, have fanned the popular sentiment which so easily carried the trois glorieuses, or "three days of glory," as the Revolution came to be called. As Berlioz joined his fellow citizens, he was careful not to reveal his identity as the composer of the Chant guerrier, though he did exchange words with the group's director about the tempo of the piece. Thus do art and life sometimes curiously mingle.

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5.Chanson à boire, H.43

Composed between May and December 1829 and published in early 1830 as No. 5 of the Neuf Mélodies irlandaises to lyrics by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), the Chanson à boire encapsulates the contrast of feelings explored in detail in that ramshackle, rambling sequel to the Symphonie fantastique, the Retour à la vie (later titled Lélio) the following year. To a translation by his friend, Thomas Gounet, of "Come, Send Round the Wine" (from the second collection of Moore's Irish Melodies [1809]), Berlioz sets off the fatalistic Allegro frenetico jollity of the baritone chorus with a tenor self-portrait—in the latest Byronic manner—as a swashbuckler with a past, a man of action oppressed with memories, passions, torments. As, indeed, he was. By the date of publication, Berlioz had, after an extended struggle, wrung from his family the privilege of becoming a musician, seen his ambitious Messe solennelle publicly performed in 1825, composed his first extended masterpiece (the Prix de Rome cantata, Cléopâtre, July 1829) and parts of what would soon take shape as the Symphonie fantastique (1830), and—animating the creative ferment—had fallen violently in love with the Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, who would, after a protracted pursuit, become his wife.

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Le Ballet des ombres, H.37

Among the works with which the young Berlioz served his musical apprenticeship, the Ballet des ombres for chorus with piano accompaniment belongs with the Huit scènes de Faust in prescient imagination and effective boldness. Indeed, the Huit scènes were Berlioz's declared Opus 1 and the Ballet des ombres his Opus 2—both withdrawn by the composer within six months of their publication in 1829. Berlioz, in fact, went to some trouble to suppress both works, rounding up and destroying all copies he could find. So successful was he that only one copy of the Ballet des ombres, in a private collection, was known to have survived at the beginning of the twentieth century, and that is now lost. Our sole source for the work is its inclusion in Malherbe and Weingartner's badly flawed edition of Berlioz's works published by Breitkopf and Härtel in the opening years of the twentieth century.

The poem by Goethe's mentor and rival, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803), translated by Berlioz's friend, Albert Du Boys, sketches a nocturnal dance of ghosts which is of a Romantic piece with the ghostly visitations in Hamlet and the Mephistophelean pranks in Goethe's Faust—works which, with the discovery of Beethoven, set aflame a central strand of the Berliozian sublime. The nine quatrains of the poem fall into three whirlwind repetitions of a tripartite idea—an upwardly skipping croon, a declamatory chant, and the downwardly skipping figure, rounded with a wail, which will be heard again in "La Reine Mab" from Roméo et Juliette a decade later. As if indebted to futurity, the work was dedicated to Chrétien Urhan (1790 - 1845), who would play the viola solo at the premiere of Harold en Italie in 1834.

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