Music: Forgotten Glory

Most composers have as much trouble as writers of program notes trying to explain with words what their music is trying to say. An exception was redhaired, articulate Hector Berlioz. He had been commissioned by the ministers of Louis-Philippe, the citizen-king, to commemorate the 1830 Revolution's tenth anniversary with a symphony. It was a proud era for France. Chopin, Liszt and George Sand reigned in the salons. Berlioz set out to do justice to it:

"I wanted first to recall the struggles of the famous "Three Days of Glory" [when Bourbon Charles X was...

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