[Footnote 230: Particularly to be recommended are the fol-
lowing: the essay inMusical Studiesby Newman; that by R.
Rolland inMusiciens d’aujourd’hui(in French and in English);
Berlioz et la société de son tempsby J. Tiersot; the essay in
Studies in Modern Musicby Hadow; Berlioz’s ownMémoires(in
French and in English) and his entertaining essays,A Travers
Chants,Grotesques de la MusiqueandSoirées d’Orchestre; the
excellent résumé of Berlioz’s writings in theAmateur Seriesby
W.F. Apthorp; theSymphony since Beethovenby Weingart-
ner; and, above all, the monumental work by Boschot in three
parts—La Jeunesse d’un Romantique,Un Romantique sous Louis
Philippe,Le Crépuscule d’un Romantique. There is an amusing
but far from convincing assault against Berlioz as a programme
composer and, to a certain extent, against Romanticism in gen-
eral, in theNew Laocoönby Professor Irving Babbitt.]
[Footnote 231: On the title page of the autograph copy of the
full score is inscribed the following quotation from King Lear:
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods; they kill us for
their sport.”]
This theme, with modifications appropriate to the changes in
the character and the environment, is repeated in each move-
ment. As for the theme itself, frankly it does not amount to
much; it certainly fails to take our emotions by storm or sing
itself into our hearts. Berlioz’s harmonization is very bald, and
as to his attempts at development,[232] the less said the bet-
ter. Of course whatever Berlioz writes for the orchestrasounds
well; of that there is no doubt. But this is not enough; any
more than we are convinced by a person’s statements or argu-
ments merely because he happens to have a beautiful speaking
voice. This dramatization of a musical theme was, after all,
nothing iconoclastically new and Berlioz is perfectly right in
claiming that he was merely extending the possibilities of that
same type of theme as is found in Beethoven himself,e.g., in the
CoriolanusOverture and to a certain extent in the Fifth Sym-
phony. If, furthermore, we look back from the dramatic and
highly personified use made of themes in modern music, in the
works of Strauss, Tchaikowsky, Franck and even Brahms (e.g.,
his First Symphony with its motto-theme) we can see that this
symphony of Berlioz is an important link in a perfectly logical
chain of development. This melody, then, l’idée fixe, appears
in each of the five movements; undergoing, however, but slight