Speaker 1: So I don't know. Do you like classical music? Are
Speaker 1: you a classical music Yeah? How you have a long
Speaker 1: appreciated classical music. I love it for working, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm just if I'm doing research or something like that,
Speaker 1: you've done this too, or you just you kind of
Speaker 1: go to the region, yeah that you're researching and try
Speaker 1: and find something. I think, I know, like I did
Speaker 1: not really. I kind of thought it was boring for
Speaker 1: a very long because I was just like, well, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know, it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's like Christo and Jean Claude, where you like, I
Speaker 1: didn't appreciate it until I really sat down to appreciate.
Speaker 1: I think is for me. I was like, whatever, background music,
Speaker 1: it's the thing that plays in the elevator or whatever.
Speaker 1: Moving on. And then like finally like really sat down
Speaker 1: and listened to some and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of story in here, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of drama, and they're trying to like lead you
Speaker 1: from one, you know, trying to trying to attract the
Speaker 1: melodies and how that all works and the harmonies and everything,
Speaker 1: and I'm just not a musician myself. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: is a lot complicated going on. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is, but I'm I now appreciate it a little
Speaker 1: bit more than I did. But I think for me,
Speaker 1: classical music very much like uh, movie scores or something like.
Speaker 1: I usually have whatever kind of visuals in my head
Speaker 1: when I listen to music, too, Like I usually like
Speaker 1: putting images to it. So there's some fun. Like I
Speaker 1: like that dynamic attitude that getting classicals sometimes where it
Speaker 1: switches to oh, all of a sudden, something crazy is happening.
Speaker 1: It got really intense, don't don't, don't, don't, don't don't
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, and then feelings soften up and
Speaker 1: there's some piccolos tuting and you know, I love the dynamics.
Speaker 1: I guess that's cool. I think Fantasia, Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: did a lot. That sounds laughable, I guess, but it
Speaker 1: was cool to like see the you know, hear music
Speaker 1: you had already heard before, and then know that animators
Speaker 1: had listened to it and come up with an entire
Speaker 1: story about painting elephants, dancing and ballerina or what you know, Right,
Speaker 1: So you're like, oh, okay, that's kind of cool. I
Speaker 1: can hear a story in here, as you say, the
Speaker 1: dynamics kind of happening or whatever. It was, the hippo's
Speaker 1: hippo ballerinas with the alligators. Yeah, yeah, we're at all
Speaker 1: those two too, so graceful. Yeah, I loved them. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: researching this gave me an even more, an even greater
Speaker 1: appreciation classical music. Absolutely because I did as you said.
Speaker 1: I put a bunch of his of Hector Berliel's music
Speaker 1: on while I was researching it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool, so worth listening to put them
Speaker 1: on Spotify. Yeah, it's fun. Oh hey everybody, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: By the way, so happy to have you back for
Speaker 1: this episode. Obviously we're talking about classical music today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I and it is not you know, you get
Speaker 1: the same image in your head of the opera and
Speaker 1: snooty elite folks like you know, with their noses in
Speaker 1: the air, being very dull and stuffy, and that's just
Speaker 1: not what's going on at all. Definitely not. I think
Speaker 1: about Amadeus, it's such a miss. Little Mozart, he was
Speaker 1: a messy right. Mozart, by the way, I was always
Speaker 1: my favorite growing up. I had a friend of high
Speaker 1: school has who loved Mozart, and I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's see what this Mozart guys all about. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, it will be the first to say it.
Speaker 1: Mozart's pretty good. Take over here. And I did love
Speaker 1: the movie Almadeus. It was so good. Um. I definitely
Speaker 1: like took piano for like a year or something, so
Speaker 1: I played a little bit of Beethoven. They always want
Speaker 1: you to learn like fur lease or whatever you know
Speaker 1: to joy you done, done, done, done, done, dune done.
Speaker 1: They're very easy to joy. But moon like the lotto
Speaker 1: was my favorite. And then they're like now at the
Speaker 1: left hand and it's like my left hand can't even write.
Speaker 1: Why can't it do all this? It can't do all
Speaker 1: this now? Moonlight Sonata was always my beautiful It's so
Speaker 1: beautiful and like, I don't know, there's just something It's
Speaker 1: just puts you in your heart. It really does. I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say it gets right to your heart,
Speaker 1: right Yeah. But anyway, so I was really excited about
Speaker 1: getting into this episode was suggested by Mahi Manta on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So At Mahi Manta, thank you for this idea. Absolutely
Speaker 1: keep them coming. We love these suggestions. Yeah, yeall, y'all
Speaker 1: are sending in some really good making our job easy. Um,
Speaker 1: But hang on a second. I have to stop us
Speaker 1: before we can get into this episode, because while I
Speaker 1: was putting together this previous episode about and Bonnie, Calico
Speaker 1: Jack and Mary read I stumbled across something that a
Speaker 1: big mistake, an embarrassing mistake that we did. This is
Speaker 1: a self correction, but it's been a minute. We have
Speaker 1: to go put ourselves into corrections corner. You're it's a loser.
Speaker 1: Oh what do we do this time? Well, okay, so
Speaker 1: we were thinking about various things that might have been
Speaker 1: going on with Mary Reid and a Bonnie and Calico Jack,
Speaker 1: and I tried to take us into speculation station, and
Speaker 1: I tried to come up with something on the spot,
Speaker 1: and I said speculation port and we laughed, it's okay,
Speaker 1: it's all right, it's not great. I knew it wasn't
Speaker 1: great at the time, and then several times later in
Speaker 1: the episode we just said speculation station. So we were
Speaker 1: we were driving a train across the ocean like fools,
Speaker 1: when in fact, months ago, in our episode about Robert
Speaker 1: Culiford and John Swan, we already solved this problem, and
Speaker 1: we called it hypothetical harbor, so come on, good. So
Speaker 1: I just know that are devoted listeners who listened to
Speaker 1: every episode two or three times heard me say speculation
Speaker 1: port and they were like, hello, you already Heavilyn, It's
Speaker 1: called hypothetical harbor. Why aren't you pulling into hypothetical harbor?
Speaker 1: And you're right, we just it's been too long and
Speaker 1: I'd forgotten about it. So I'm embarrassed. Right, Well, take
Speaker 1: a couple of laps around the house as punishments, useful exercise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could use that, all right, all right, wearing out
Speaker 1: of that mess, shake it off, shake off the mistake
Speaker 1: to ourselves, and moving on. Yeah. So, yes, today we're
Speaker 1: not in speculation port or hypothetical harbor. We're in a
Speaker 1: world of classical music. To talk about Hector BerliOS. Can
Speaker 1: I say it should be hector hector? Okay, it should
Speaker 1: be actor Berlioz. And I looked at the pronunciation from Julian,
Speaker 1: our favorite pronunciation guide, and he said, influence, you would
Speaker 1: call in hector Berlioz. But in English, of course, it
Speaker 1: is okay to say hector Berlioz. Still okay, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you okay, so I guess Ector Burlios was a I'm
Speaker 1: going to say it like that every time, like Eastern France, Russia,
Speaker 1: very very dear Russia. Ector Burlios was a composer, a
Speaker 1: music journalist, and a critic in the mid eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: whose work has been derided and praised alike since he
Speaker 1: was alive, up until today, when music writers still hotly
Speaker 1: debate whether or not he was any good. His music
Speaker 1: was super informed by his love life, and boy, what
Speaker 1: a love life. Love caused him to get into music
Speaker 1: in the first place, right his most well known symphony
Speaker 1: to plot and then abandon an elaborate murder, suicide and
Speaker 1: so much more so, let's hear about the very dramatic
Speaker 1: Ector b I'm ready, hey, their French come listen. Well,
Speaker 1: Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no
Speaker 1: matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A
Speaker 1: lover might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 1: abstract concept a concrete wall. But if there's a story
Speaker 1: with the second clans ridiculous roles a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: Ector BerliOS was supposed to go into medicine like his
Speaker 1: father He was born in southeast France in eighteen oh
Speaker 1: three and educated at home, but when he was only
Speaker 1: twelve years old, he fell in love for the first
Speaker 1: time with his next door neighbor, Estelle du buff Nothing
Speaker 1: like the girl next door, but she was already eighteen.
Speaker 1: You know, he's twelve, she's eighteen. She's kind of like
Speaker 1: when I was twelve. I definitely had a crush on
Speaker 1: several eighteen year olds I think, you know, like my
Speaker 1: older sister's friends, the baby sitter, whatever exactly, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure they were like, Okay, that's cute. Don't you go
Speaker 1: outside and play, so pretty much the same thing going
Speaker 1: on for poor actor as I was like, okay, um,
Speaker 1: so it's pretty one sided. And so he tried to
Speaker 1: pour his unrequited passion into composing music for the first time.
Speaker 1: He wrote in his memoirs quote love cannot express the
Speaker 1: idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.
Speaker 1: And he had only gotten a little instruction in music.
Speaker 1: He had learned guitar and flute from local teachers, but
Speaker 1: he never studied the piano, which was pretty common for
Speaker 1: composers to learn the piano and usually create their compositions
Speaker 1: on it or whatever. So he ends up devouring books
Speaker 1: on music theory and trying to figure out how he
Speaker 1: can put all his feelings on the page. So it's seventeen.
Speaker 1: Actor moved to Paris and enrolled in medical school, even
Speaker 1: though he was completely disgusted at the idea of dissecting bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to also one of the many reasons I
Speaker 1: did not go into medical school. But he did it
Speaker 1: anyway at his father's insistence. You know, he's telling his
Speaker 1: dad like but that he is simply cannot cut into
Speaker 1: this corpsu's flesh. Can't I just write the stirring opera
Speaker 1: about my feelings about cutting into the corpsus flesh? Maybe,
Speaker 1: all right, an opera on Luis section of of Pierre.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna see Jean Pierre. Well, there's only
Speaker 1: two French names. But fortunately he had a major compensation
Speaker 1: because first he got a generous allowance to go to
Speaker 1: this medical school, and second he got to go to Peris.
Speaker 1: He immediately made use of the city's music library, and
Speaker 1: there are two opera houses, and he just went and
Speaker 1: saw a bunch of shows. And the more opera he saw,
Speaker 1: the more he became convinced that he was meant to
Speaker 1: be a composer. He loved all the drama, He loved
Speaker 1: the staging and especially the use of the orchestra to
Speaker 1: move the story along in these operas. So he got
Speaker 1: private tutoring in composition on the side. And when he
Speaker 1: graduated medical school, he immediately said, nope, Flora, get this
Speaker 1: and he dropped the profession entirely. And his dad was
Speaker 1: like that suitcase son. You know what I understand. You
Speaker 1: don't like medicine, but you will make a great lawyers.
Speaker 1: Actors like no, no, no no, it's not what I'm doing
Speaker 1: to play music. So he got really mad about this, obviously,
Speaker 1: and he started reducing or withholding hector's allowance sometimes for
Speaker 1: defying him. But actor was like, whatever, man, keep on trucking.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do me, you know, classic story. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so despite the financial hardship, he kept pursuing his dream
Speaker 1: to become a composer, and he entered the Pair Conservatoire
Speaker 1: as a student and made the first of his four
Speaker 1: attempts to win the Pleis de Rome, which was a
Speaker 1: competitive prize for students of the arts. It provided a
Speaker 1: scholarship to study for three to five years at this
Speaker 1: prestigious arts school in Rome, Italy. Very nice, so pretty
Speaker 1: good prize, and he began contributing to music journalism as
Speaker 1: well for money. He didn't love it, but he was
Speaker 1: very very good at it, so he was doing that
Speaker 1: to pay the bills. And he would write scathing pieces
Speaker 1: about how Italian opera couldn't even begin to stand up
Speaker 1: next to the artistry of French opera. It was like
Speaker 1: a whole opera. So he's trying to win the Puis
Speaker 1: d Rome and his strategy is, let me shoot all
Speaker 1: over Italian opera. It probably worked well because the school
Speaker 1: was still French. He was like, I'll go to Rome
Speaker 1: and talk ships all. Oh man, that's like when I
Speaker 1: did when I did my study abroad, Study abroad Alert.
Speaker 1: I was in Italy and we went to a vineyard
Speaker 1: there and the woman was like, you know, giving us
Speaker 1: all these tastes of all these different wines. And I
Speaker 1: think she had a few herself, and she was like,
Speaker 1: the French wine so much a sugar that we don't
Speaker 1: have to put the sugar in our wine. And the
Speaker 1: French wine it's like, you know, I don't think she
Speaker 1: said this, but she's like it's like a ghoul aid,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: artistic rivalry between France and Italy. Little bit a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although I have to say when we were in Italy
Speaker 1: and France for honeymoon honeymoon alert, um, I think we've
Speaker 1: kind of agreed a little bit because we drank wine
Speaker 1: in Italy for a couple of weeks and it was great,
Speaker 1: pretty easy, went down really easy, and like you woke
Speaker 1: up the next day and kind of felt fine. There
Speaker 1: was no wine hangover. And then we went to France
Speaker 1: and had some red wine there, and then we went
Speaker 1: in the next day. We were like, ah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: both wonderful, beautiful, phenomenal places. Happy to drink wine in
Speaker 1: either place right now, Well, I'm gonna say I'll take
Speaker 1: the Italian wine. So yeah. Actor is talking about Italian
Speaker 1: opera basically, and he's like, French operas amazing, nothing can
Speaker 1: can compare. And he also started going to see plays
Speaker 1: and concerts and he went and saw Hamlet and Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliet, and even though he didn't speak English, the
Speaker 1: play is still really stuck with him, and it began
Speaker 1: a lifelong passion for Shakespeare, but it was the company's
Speaker 1: Ophelia that really caught his eye. Oh Ophelia. She was
Speaker 1: an actress named Harriet Smithson and she was a twenty
Speaker 1: seven year old woman from Ireland. Her parents were also
Speaker 1: actors runs in the family, but when she was still
Speaker 1: an infant, they left her in the care of a
Speaker 1: reverend who brought her up as his own daughter and
Speaker 1: try to shield her from everything about the stage, which
Speaker 1: is classic actor for them to be like, don't you
Speaker 1: dare do what I did, child, Let me protect you
Speaker 1: from this nightmare. Go into religion instead. I'm so tired. However,
Speaker 1: so this reverend who was raising her died when she
Speaker 1: was only eight years old, so she got sent off
Speaker 1: to a boarding school and uh, you know, and this
Speaker 1: was totally the opposite of what her parents wanted, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure the boarding school just introduced her to theater
Speaker 1: and she was like, this is it. When she was
Speaker 1: only fourteen, she made her stage debut in Ireland, and
Speaker 1: in search of fame and fortune, she made her way
Speaker 1: to London and she got fair reviews, not too bad,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't capturing any hearts. But then she went
Speaker 1: down to Paris in eighteen twenty seven and made her
Speaker 1: debut there, and her first Parisian play itself got negative reviews,
Speaker 1: but her performance got very positive ones. Then she got
Speaker 1: cast opposite Charles Kempbell in Hamlet. Charles Kembell was like
Speaker 1: the actor for her. He was the Oscar Isaac of
Speaker 1: his time. UH. Parisian theater critics were totally floored by
Speaker 1: her interpretation. They wrote quote Ms. Smith soon acted the
Speaker 1: scene in which robbed the vicinity, she takes her own
Speaker 1: veil to be her father's body with utmost grace and truth,
Speaker 1: and her rave reviews won her the role of Juliet
Speaker 1: the next week in Romeo and Juliet, and she got
Speaker 1: even more praise after that. The King of France even
Speaker 1: sent her a purse full of gold for her portrayal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like, that's like Joe Biden being like, hey, um hey, Scar,
Speaker 1: Joe loved it. Here's fifty bucks. There's fifty corn pop. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: corn pops apparently going off the market. I know, not
Speaker 1: a bad not a bad get. Although they're going off
Speaker 1: the market because they have embalming fluid in them or something.
Speaker 1: I love corn pops, so I was like, wow, Wow,
Speaker 1: maybe that embalming fluid from the corn pops I've eaten
Speaker 1: is well, I'm so well preserved. It's been keeping you going.
Speaker 1: Give us the corn pops back. I need the embolving fluid. Now.
Speaker 1: It's like the Holy Grail. It's like eternal youth. Yeah pop. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Apparently Harriet had this very naturalistic way of of portraying
Speaker 1: her characters that was a bit unusual at the time.
Speaker 1: I know, now we're very much about natural, realistic reactions
Speaker 1: and listening and stuff like that in the acting world.
Speaker 1: But she was doing it, you know, I guess early
Speaker 1: on before many people were, and so yeah, people were
Speaker 1: really impressed by it. It was so subtle, so cool.
Speaker 1: But maybe no one admired her more than one man
Speaker 1: in the Hamlet audience, Dear Berlos He wrote in his
Speaker 1: memoirs quote, I come now to the supreme drama of
Speaker 1: my life in the role of Ophelia I Harriott Smiths.
Speaker 1: The impression made on my heart and mind by her
Speaker 1: extraordinary talent Nate, her dramatic genius was equaled only by
Speaker 1: the havoc Wrotten me by the poet. She's so nobly interpreted.
Speaker 1: That is all I can say. That only music can express.
Speaker 1: I mean he I mean, the guy's dramatic. Alright, that's
Speaker 1: all I'm saying. He's got hello, drama in his heart
Speaker 1: and mind and his very bones. And he began to
Speaker 1: pursue her relentlessly. One of his biographers, Hugh McDonald, even
Speaker 1: called his obsession with her quote emotional derangement. He sent
Speaker 1: her flowers, he wrote her many letters. He even rented
Speaker 1: an apartment near hers for a brief time, just so
Speaker 1: he could watch her coming and going. But Harriet refused
Speaker 1: to meet him. She's like, She's like, I see Captain
Speaker 1: Red Flag has moved in next door. I will be
Speaker 1: using the back entrance from now on. How long has
Speaker 1: at least? And then she returned to London in not
Speaker 1: sure if that's related to moving in next door or not.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it's not. It's it's interesting to see
Speaker 1: that this was happening. This has probably been happening throughout
Speaker 1: history as long as they have been celebrities. There's been
Speaker 1: people stalking them. Yeah. Um, we had some a TV
Speaker 1: show I worked on for a brief while. Uh, mid
Speaker 1: level fame actor would get letters from the same person
Speaker 1: very frequently, and they were not scary Um. They were
Speaker 1: just clearly written someone who was a bit obsessed and uh,
Speaker 1: you know they shared a birthday with this actor, so
Speaker 1: that's they they spent. They sent an especially long letter,
Speaker 1: um with just a lot of they just like wrote
Speaker 1: a lot of personal details about the actor's life. They
Speaker 1: just like showing that this is how much I know
Speaker 1: about you. Um and you know, very creepy. We we'd
Speaker 1: pass them around, you know, which is it's pretty fascinating
Speaker 1: to read. It wasn't mocking necessarily, um, but it was
Speaker 1: just like, Yeah, there's people out there who really put
Speaker 1: a lot of themselves into the people they're following. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me talk about paris. Social relationships where you feel
Speaker 1: close to someone you've never met, um, just because maybe
Speaker 1: you listen to their podcast or watch all their movies
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And it can I think I
Speaker 1: can get really conflated for some people that they really
Speaker 1: do know that person, or that that person will somehow
Speaker 1: know that they know them, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: don't you know? Quite honestly, like we have not gotten
Speaker 1: like some real stalkard letters yet and kind of waiting, guys,
Speaker 1: it's about to say, you know, find out everything about
Speaker 1: our personal lives and starts setting those pictures of ourselves.
Speaker 1: You know, I won't, but I was about to say,
Speaker 1: I think, but you know, at this time, that's definitely
Speaker 1: like stalkery behavior, and I don't know, if you know,
Speaker 1: a speculation station. Harriet probably was like, um, do I
Speaker 1: need to be afraid of this guy or what? But
Speaker 1: at the same time, at the at the time, it
Speaker 1: was pretty flattering. It was like it was like a
Speaker 1: sign of success that people were so obsessed with you,
Speaker 1: and that they were willing to throw themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: on a puddle for you and something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: so she might have liked that a little bit too.
Speaker 1: It would have been a sign of like, I'm making
Speaker 1: it ye want right now. Much like Ector's boyhood love
Speaker 1: for his neighbor is still his unrequited passion for Harriet
Speaker 1: was poured into his music and you started righting his
Speaker 1: most enduring and well known orchestral peace symphony Fantastique, And
Speaker 1: here you can hear a little bit of that now
Speaker 1: definitely recognizable. No know this song it was very autobiographical.
Speaker 1: Who's all about a man who falls deeply in love
Speaker 1: with a woman who doesn't know he exists. Classical music
Speaker 1: dot Com writes, quote, in the opening movement, the young
Speaker 1: musician first sees the woman of his dreams. Her image
Speaker 1: haunts his imagination, presented as a musical theme or idea fixate.
Speaker 1: This is transformed in the following movements as he experiences
Speaker 1: a festive party, a stroll in the countryside, opium hallucinations,
Speaker 1: and a witches sabbath. So it kind of goes in
Speaker 1: a direction there like why is he gone opium? This
Speaker 1: is a this is a great I'm interested. This opera
Speaker 1: starts with a festive party and a stroll in the countryside,
Speaker 1: devolves into an opium hallucination, and eventually there's witches in
Speaker 1: the movie. Um, they go on to say. Quote for Berlioz,
Speaker 1: it seems there was no real distinction between the real
Speaker 1: Smithson and one of Shakespeare's heroines. He often referred to
Speaker 1: her as Ophelia, Juliette, or Desdemona. A bit of a
Speaker 1: pedestal yea. Also, um, at least two of those women
Speaker 1: died tragic So I can't remember what happened to Desdemona,
Speaker 1: but I think she makes it. Um. Yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that movie is so good. I would watch that again.
Speaker 1: The old Laurence Fishburne. Othello movie so good? Now did
Speaker 1: you ever see? Oh? Yeah, it was very good. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: when oh came out, I was in the midst of
Speaker 1: my obsession with Othello. I think I had just recently
Speaker 1: seen the Kenneth Branna movie, so I was like, what
Speaker 1: is this teenager trash bullshit? Like, you know, it's probably
Speaker 1: a pretty decent interpretation if you go back to but
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty he arranged to have the if he
Speaker 1: performed to celebrate Harriet's arrival back in Paris. But you
Speaker 1: know what, she just never showed up. It's like, I
Speaker 1: know you've never heard of me before, but I arranged
Speaker 1: an entire orchestral piece for you and arranged to have
Speaker 1: it played at your arrival. Hello, why aren't you at
Speaker 1: this party? The stranger is throwing in your honor? I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: did he did he? Did he know she wasn't there
Speaker 1: before he started? And he was like all dispiritedly that
Speaker 1: seeing like who cares anymore? Or did he like really
Speaker 1: put himself into it, into an amazing job? And then
Speaker 1: like found out she wasn't there, and he keep what
Speaker 1: was this for? He keeps glancing over at the seat
Speaker 1: that has a reserve sign tape to it, and it's
Speaker 1: here yet, like waiting for Guffman. Heartbreaking. Meanwhile, she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, she got a flyer two days ago for
Speaker 1: what is this? I don't have time for that, Like,
Speaker 1: never thought about it again, never, Yeah, do not cross.
Speaker 1: But while he was agonizing over this masterpiece, actor attracted
Speaker 1: the attention of a beautiful young woman named Camille Moke. Now,
Speaker 1: she was only eighteen years old, but she was already
Speaker 1: one of the most brilliant pianists of her generation. And
Speaker 1: as he described her, she had quote a slim and
Speaker 1: graceful figure, magnificent black hair, and large blue eyes, and
Speaker 1: she was instantly interested in this brooding, romantic twenty seven
Speaker 1: year old composer. Oh God, what a site, right, I
Speaker 1: mean the height of the romantic period. Like, there's nothing
Speaker 1: like a guy with dark hair falling over his eyes,
Speaker 1: like the memo times. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, nine dude in a Starbucks right in his
Speaker 1: screenplay or poetry. Maybe he's so cute. Yeah, he's got like,
Speaker 1: you know, dark hair, gonna whispering over his eyes. I
Speaker 1: can fix him. She's like he's certainly devoted to the
Speaker 1: women he likes. He's he's a loyal guy. You can
Speaker 1: that now. At first, his obsession with Harriet kept Actor
Speaker 1: from noticing Camille, but it didn't take that long for
Speaker 1: her flirtations to pay off. Again, she's pretty hot, so
Speaker 1: he was finally like, oh, she keeps leaning up on me.
Speaker 1: I guess Bulos wrote quote, I yielded and let myself
Speaker 1: find consolation for all my sorrows in a new passion.
Speaker 1: And within a couple of weeks they were lovers. Within
Speaker 1: a couple of months, they were engaged to be married.
Speaker 1: He moves fast. He turned to her and said, help me,
Speaker 1: help me, Randa, help me get her out of my heart.
Speaker 1: All that's a pretty good song. I should write this down.
Speaker 1: I write this down. But Ector had another obstacle standing
Speaker 1: in the way of his new true love, her mother,
Speaker 1: whom he called or the hippopotamus. Wow that's dark now.
Speaker 1: Did he start by under that and then she didn't
Speaker 1: like him? Was it the other way around? He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would not blame her. Maybe she was in a
Speaker 1: Twoto like infantation. Yeah, maybe she was the inspiration. Um.
Speaker 1: She did not approve of her daughter's passion for this
Speaker 1: broke gass musician, so she decided to make his life
Speaker 1: annoying as hell. According to Robert Greenberg music dot COM's
Speaker 1: article Scandalous Overtures, Camille's mother quote put him through more
Speaker 1: hoops than a circus dog to make him prove himself
Speaker 1: worthy of her daughter. Now, they didn't say what the
Speaker 1: hoops were, so speculation station what did this lam make
Speaker 1: him do? Oh my god, I mean like literal hoops,
Speaker 1: yes I have. I'm picturing her being like, jumped through
Speaker 1: this hoop and he's like, no, that's humiliating. I'm a man,
Speaker 1: not her dog. And she's like, well, do you love
Speaker 1: my daughter or what. He's like, fine, I'll jump through
Speaker 1: the hoop. And then he jumped through the hoop and
Speaker 1: Camille was like, yeay, I love you, and Mom's like
Speaker 1: again and he's like okay. And then as soon as
Speaker 1: he's about to jump, she sets the hoop on fire.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, flaming hoops. Literally. She was just like,
Speaker 1: you need to make money. So she was like, go,
Speaker 1: I don't know, do some LNG cares. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: whatever she did, she made a miserable yeah, but fortunately
Speaker 1: During this time, Hector competed for his fourth time for
Speaker 1: the Prix de Rome, and this time he won. All
Speaker 1: that shipping on Italian opera finally paid off, and he
Speaker 1: took himself off to Italy to write a French opera
Speaker 1: in Italy worthy of the love of Canelle. Mok. And
Speaker 1: with that, we will take a brief commercial break, and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with their lovely story. All right, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the symphony. Now. Was only three weeks
Speaker 1: into this program at the Academy that he had competed
Speaker 1: for several times when he received a letter from Camille's
Speaker 1: mother saying that Camille was breaking off their engagement. If
Speaker 1: he's in Rome and there in Paris, probably takes a
Speaker 1: week or so to get a letter there. So he
Speaker 1: goes to the academy and she immediately starts like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is where I get rid of him. She's plotting,
Speaker 1: plotting against him this whole time. Well, Camille had received
Speaker 1: an offer from a super rich guy thirty years older
Speaker 1: than herself. His name is also Camille. The guy's name
Speaker 1: was Camille Playel. He was a piano maker and a
Speaker 1: virtuoso pianist himself, and he actually provided pianos for Frederic
Speaker 1: Chopin of all people, and he was also heir to
Speaker 1: the Playel piano making fortune. So this guy really had
Speaker 1: his life together. Probably he was thirty years older. That
Speaker 1: definitely Hector had a little more time can get his
Speaker 1: life right. And Madame Mouke told Hector backup off Camille forever.
Speaker 1: Let's not make a big deal about this, Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, they're they're both named Camille. Like, that's kind
Speaker 1: of awkward calling out your lover's name in bed right
Speaker 1: to just be saying, call me by your name. I
Speaker 1: guess he could really do that. Where's the coming about
Speaker 1: your name? About Camille and Camille? Call right? We're their
Speaker 1: friends always, Like, oh, the Camilles are here. But Camille's
Speaker 1: mother should have known by now that making a big
Speaker 1: deal out of things was kind of Hector's whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like his kind of m O in general. I
Speaker 1: don't think he knew how to not make a big
Speaker 1: deal a lot of things. Yeah, he had big feelings
Speaker 1: about this whole thing, and possibly the biggest of those
Speaker 1: feelings was anger. So he decided what he was going
Speaker 1: to do was leave Rome in a huff. Presumably go
Speaker 1: back to Paris and kill Camille's mother, Camille, the other Camille,
Speaker 1: and then himself in this spectacular triple homicide suicide. So
Speaker 1: he stole two double barrel pistols as well as some
Speaker 1: Stryck nine. I guess in case he missed, then poison him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I guess he's Oh, if I shot you
Speaker 1: in the leg, you would have fallen over, and then
Speaker 1: I'll just walk over. Who knows what he was thinking here.
Speaker 1: He also got himself a French maid's costume, which he
Speaker 1: intended to wear as a disguise in order to sneak
Speaker 1: into the Moke house. All right, actor, you were not
Speaker 1: thinking this through, right. I mean, this is a woman
Speaker 1: who has known you pretty well and he slept with you.
Speaker 1: I think you just put on unless you have a
Speaker 1: missis doubt fire makeup situation happening. How do you think
Speaker 1: you're just gonna walk right by her and and she's
Speaker 1: not gonna be like ecto? Is that you and a
Speaker 1: French maid's costume? He goes and finds Harvey fire scene
Speaker 1: is like Nick me the most beautiful French maid you've
Speaker 1: ever seen? And he's like all right. He was like
Speaker 1: I can't do that. I can't do that, Actor skill,
Speaker 1: I would you like to be an old British maid?
Speaker 1: I can make you an ugly wol frenchwoman. Does that work? So,
Speaker 1: on route to France to carry out his amazing plan,
Speaker 1: Actor apparently lost the French maid's costume somewhere. Somehow he
Speaker 1: had to have another one made in Genoa. Where did
Speaker 1: you lose it? What happened to it? Did he put
Speaker 1: it on? Like, try it on and it ripped? Well?
Speaker 1: What does he tell that? Because you can't go to
Speaker 1: a party city and get a French maid's costume. So
Speaker 1: goes the tailor and he's like, I need an outfit
Speaker 1: for my for my maid. She's like, okay, well is
Speaker 1: she here? Can I measure her? What are her dimensions?
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, just use me. She's about my size.
Speaker 1: Maybe in Genoa they were like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't ask questions you want Yeah, you're the ninth guy
Speaker 1: to come in here and ask for a French maid's
Speaker 1: costume and his size this week, no further question. So
Speaker 1: while actor was in Genoa, he fell off the city
Speaker 1: ramparts into the Mediterranean theme. Maybe that's how he lost
Speaker 1: the French Baids costume. Maybe I thought it was was
Speaker 1: waiting for it to be made, but maybe that is.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to put this on and then
Speaker 1: balance beam across the ramparts of the river. See what
Speaker 1: I can do. One source said he was trying to
Speaker 1: drown himself. Others said he just fell off, like walking
Speaker 1: on the ramparts like you do. He was fished out
Speaker 1: by some locals, and after spending an hour violently vomiting
Speaker 1: up seawater, he decided not to go through with his plot.
Speaker 1: It turns out dying is terrible, and I want to
Speaker 1: do it again. That sucked. Other sources say that he
Speaker 1: did nearly drown in Genoa, but that he didn't change
Speaker 1: his mind about his plot until he was in Niece, France. Anyway,
Speaker 1: at some point in his journey, his rage died down,
Speaker 1: and he thought about the two sisters he had, with
Speaker 1: whom he was very close, and all the music that
Speaker 1: he wanted to write that would be left unwritten. He
Speaker 1: went through with killing himself, hopefully. Also thought about, like Camillo,
Speaker 1: all the things she could do. But it doesn't say
Speaker 1: that really really self centered on this one, he wrote
Speaker 1: in his memoirs quote love of life and art, whispered
Speaker 1: a thousand sweet promises to me. I let them speak,
Speaker 1: and even found a certain pleasure in listening. So he
Speaker 1: stayed in Nice for a little while, writing music, walking
Speaker 1: through orange groves and swimming in the ocean, later calling
Speaker 1: them quote the twenty happiest days of my life. So
Speaker 1: if you're going through a breakup, right now, take yourself
Speaker 1: to me, Dorothee, and take a big right. That sounds great.
Speaker 1: Then he took himself back to Rome and successfully appealed
Speaker 1: to be let back into this composition program that he
Speaker 1: had left in order to go murder suicide. A bunch
Speaker 1: of people. You know, I'm sorry I left school. I
Speaker 1: had the craziest idea and it didn't pan out, and
Speaker 1: they were like, you know, that would make a great opera, right,
Speaker 1: get back in here, And you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe he dodged a bullet with Camille, because only four
Speaker 1: years later after marrying her, her husband Camille Playel separated
Speaker 1: from her permanently, citing scandalous conduct and multiple infidelities. Although
Speaker 1: I have to wonder if that's not just case. He
Speaker 1: was thirty years older than her and like basically an
Speaker 1: arranged marriage. Yeah, She's like, I'm not not that into you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But one of her lovers was the Hungarian composer and
Speaker 1: pianist Franz List, which apparently strained lists relationship hip with
Speaker 1: Chopin because they used Chopin's room for one of their
Speaker 1: little rendezvous and it really pissed him off. Did you
Speaker 1: at least change the sheets? List wrote about her quote,
Speaker 1: she has magnificent talent. She asked me whether I remembered
Speaker 1: Chopin's room. It certainly, madame, How could I forget? Etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's that etcetera at the end, because it makes it
Speaker 1: sound like he was like, yes, of course, madam, how
Speaker 1: could I forget? It's such an amazing night with you, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Oh I thought maybe he was like, because he says
Speaker 1: she's a magnificent talent, maybe he's like, oh, yeah, how
Speaker 1: could I forget Chopin's room, etcetera. Like and also the
Speaker 1: kitchen and the living room and the basement and the
Speaker 1: attic and on top of Chopin's piano that your husband made. Wow.
Speaker 1: What's funny too, is that Franz Least was a really
Speaker 1: big fan of actor's. Actually he loved the symphony fantastic
Speaker 1: and like we said, Actor had never learned the piano
Speaker 1: um so Franz Least actually rewrote the entire symphony for
Speaker 1: piano so that more people could hear it, because I
Speaker 1: thought it was so cool. So thanks to Hector was
Speaker 1: alone again and so he dedicated himself to composition again.
Speaker 1: He hated Italian music and culture. He's like funk all this,
Speaker 1: but the scenery was very inspiring. He thought it was
Speaker 1: beautiful countryside, gorgeous sunsets. I mean, which is so true.
Speaker 1: It is beautiful. It is if I can go back
Speaker 1: to my study abroad and now I won't one an episode.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, And all that scenery and beauty really influenced
Speaker 1: his work while he was there, but he left the
Speaker 1: program a little early and went back to France in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two, and there he arranged a concert of
Speaker 1: his work, including the Symphony Fantastique and its sequel Lelio,
Speaker 1: and through a third party, he sent an invitation to
Speaker 1: the symphony's muse Harriet Smithson, Oh, his original obsession, right,
Speaker 1: and she also inspired the sequel Lelio, So he's still
Speaker 1: on Harriet even after Camille, he's still up on Harriet
Speaker 1: in his mind. Now this time, Harriet accepted the invite,
Speaker 1: maybe because it was from a third party and she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you want me to go great? Or
Speaker 1: she like completely forgotten about this guy, like he's thinking
Speaker 1: of her every day, and she's like, I never heard
Speaker 1: of him. Sure, I'll go see what this is all about. Sure,
Speaker 1: But anyway, she accepted, and she was dazzled by all
Speaker 1: the celebrities and attended, which included friends least Frederick Chopin,
Speaker 1: Pagan Nanny, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Duma. We're list In
Speaker 1: Chopin like sitting across the aisle from each other, just
Speaker 1: staring Daggers, I can't believe what you did to my piano.
Speaker 1: Oh you have no idea? What I did? You know?
Speaker 1: So why? And while she's in the audience, Harriet finally
Speaker 1: realizes that this symphony is about her. She didn't not
Speaker 1: know that this whole time, so she's pretty flattered, and
Speaker 1: she sent a message to Hector to congratulate him on
Speaker 1: his successful concert. They ended up finally meeting in person,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't long before they became lovers, and in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three, she agreed to marry him, despite her
Speaker 1: family's strident opposition. Now, the past couple of years actually
Speaker 1: had not been too kind to Harriet. She had gotten
Speaker 1: rave reviews in Paris, which emboldened her to return to
Speaker 1: the London stage. But the reviewers in London, of course,
Speaker 1: they had panned her acting before she ever went to Paris,
Speaker 1: so they weren't eager to look like that. They didn't
Speaker 1: know what they were talking about originally, right. They didn't
Speaker 1: want eat Crowe to be like, well, actually, I guess
Speaker 1: she's very good. So they were kind of lukewarm about
Speaker 1: her effage. They were like, shiss, I guess she learned
Speaker 1: something in Paris. She's okay. I didn't want to stab
Speaker 1: myself in the eye like the last time I saw her.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder if part of it is like
Speaker 1: I don't want people think Paris knows more about going. Sure,
Speaker 1: we do in London. But still she did all right
Speaker 1: for a while until she set up her own theater
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty, which is the worst decision you can
Speaker 1: make to start your own theater. Kids out there today.
Speaker 1: She put up and performed in several plays, but they
Speaker 1: were unsuccessful. And in March of eighteen thirty three, she
Speaker 1: was deeply in debt, which was a serious problem because
Speaker 1: her mother and her sister relied on her financially. Some
Speaker 1: biographies say that these financial constraints are the main reason
Speaker 1: that she was willing to accept her old stalker Hector. Yeah,
Speaker 1: instead of like, oh, I didn't know, oh it's about me.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I guess you're actually kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: famous for some like hut progression. But they were like, actually,
Speaker 1: she just was like, I'm broke. I need somebody to
Speaker 1: take care of This guy seems to be doing all
Speaker 1: right and he's into me, so I'll take it, right.
Speaker 1: But he also was not making that much money, so
Speaker 1: I thunder about that he wasn't He was famous and
Speaker 1: you know, successful, but he wasn't actually gathering. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: perfect because she's like, he's not so so wealthy and
Speaker 1: successful that he's unattainable. He's got all these women after him,
Speaker 1: but I'm just like betting on his future, like if
Speaker 1: he's on the rise, so this would be a smart
Speaker 1: time to get in, okay, okay. A speculative and apparently
Speaker 1: they had a pretty happy marriage at first. In four
Speaker 1: they had a son Louis, but things went downhill after that.
Speaker 1: Harriet performed for the final time in eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: She had no roles, nothing going on with her career,
Speaker 1: and actor meanwhile, wasn't making that much money. But his
Speaker 1: fame was growing as a music critic and a conductor
Speaker 1: as well as a composer, and his main desire as
Speaker 1: a composer was to write an opera, because that was
Speaker 1: how you really made your mark in the world of
Speaker 1: music in Paris. Apparently, at that time, music on its
Speaker 1: own was just not very meaningful. It didn't seem like
Speaker 1: a very high art. They were like, you need to
Speaker 1: throw in some storytelling, some costumes. I need some more
Speaker 1: stuff going on. So he worked for a few years
Speaker 1: on his opera ben Venuto, Cellini and Burly Oz. Scholar D.
Speaker 1: Kern Holloman says that he agrees with Hector that it
Speaker 1: has quote exceptional exuberance and verve, but the performances weren't great.
Speaker 1: Apparently they had weak singers and bad staging, both of
Speaker 1: which are kind of the whole point of operation. Without
Speaker 1: good staging and good singing, you don't have a good opera,
Speaker 1: just a concert. They were like everyone's dressed great though.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the opera was poorly received. It was quickly canceled,
Speaker 1: and Hector foresaw that he would never get another chance
Speaker 1: to take it in the world of opera, and he
Speaker 1: was right. The doors of the Paris Opera were never
Speaker 1: opened for him again. Wow, Petty one one one bad opera.
Speaker 1: They never let you come back. Yeah, not like Hollywood today,
Speaker 1: where you can just fail up. Let's be honest, there's
Speaker 1: so many failures up in Hollywood. But not long after
Speaker 1: that disaster, he conducted a concert of his own work
Speaker 1: that went great. Paganini was in the audience, and after
Speaker 1: the show, he came up on stage, knelt down before
Speaker 1: Hector in homage and kissed his hands. How, I mean,
Speaker 1: how cool is that? Right? Tagging Ninny? I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: already knew he was the best. And only a few
Speaker 1: days later Hector was shocked to receive a check from
Speaker 1: Paganini for francs that is worth just checking. We have
Speaker 1: one conversion calculator here that says it is over a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy thousand euros today. Wow. Just oh, here's
Speaker 1: a little you know what, what's that an American dollar's
Speaker 1: gonna be over two hundred thousand dollars. Here's it. Here's
Speaker 1: a check, just because I liked your thing that you did.
Speaker 1: He's like, you need money, sir, right, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: me too, somebody right me, Hey, if anybody likes this
Speaker 1: show enough to write us two check, we will take it,
Speaker 1: we will cash it, and thank you gratefully. So this
Speaker 1: enabled Actor to pay off his and Harriet's debts and
Speaker 1: even allowed him to take a break from music criticism
Speaker 1: and concentrate just on composing. So he did some successful work,
Speaker 1: but around eighteen forty he was struggling financially again and
Speaker 1: started writing a series of articles that became his Treatise
Speaker 1: on Orchestration, published in eighteen forty three. And this and
Speaker 1: the Symphony Fantastic seemed to be his most enduring achievements.
Speaker 1: Sometime in eighteen forty he met the mezzo soprano Marie Rescio,
Speaker 1: who was a professional singer with the Paris Opera. And
Speaker 1: we'll find out more about that relationship right after this
Speaker 1: and welcome back to the shower one. So, remember how
Speaker 1: Actor and Harriet's marriage was going downhill. That's because Harriet
Speaker 1: got really jealous of Actor's success. Just as her career
Speaker 1: was failing, she started drinking heavily. That caused increasingly bad
Speaker 1: health problems for her, and then she started getting real
Speaker 1: suspicious about this Marie woman that actor was spending so
Speaker 1: much time with, and that only increased her bitter resentment,
Speaker 1: her drinking, and her ill health. I gotta wonder if
Speaker 1: one time she opened his closet and was like, what's
Speaker 1: this French maid's costume doing it here? He was like,
Speaker 1: just a souvenir of an old guy. I'm not cheating
Speaker 1: on you with a maid. That's just from what I
Speaker 1: was going to murder, suicide a bunch of people. Oh
Speaker 1: what a really, But Harriet's instincts were spot on. By
Speaker 1: eight forty one, Marie was Hector's mistress, and he even
Speaker 1: helped her get a steady job singing at the Opera Comique,
Speaker 1: but that only lasted a few months because she had
Speaker 1: a limited range and apparently also terrible stage fright that
Speaker 1: robbed her of any singing skills that she had while
Speaker 1: she was on stage. Weird career to go into. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I really hate heights more than
Speaker 1: anything else in the world, But I just want to
Speaker 1: be a crane construction operator, you know, come on. She
Speaker 1: accompanied Hector on his German concert tour and sang several solos,
Speaker 1: and he even composed a song called Les d'ta for
Speaker 1: her in Three the Nights of Summer. The BiblioTech National
Speaker 1: in France calls Marie a possessive shrew who demanded to
Speaker 1: be given solos, even though Hector wrote, quote shemus leg
Speaker 1: two dozen cats actors like, you don't sound like good.
Speaker 1: Let me try. I guess I'll write something not complicated.
Speaker 1: She's de ended in other ways. I have other gifts.
Speaker 1: So it also says in BiblioTech National that he tried
Speaker 1: to flee from Marie in Frankfurt during their tour, but
Speaker 1: then she caught up with him in Weimar. He was like,
Speaker 1: damn it, Oh did I forget you. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you caught up. Well, here we are again. Marie would
Speaker 1: even try to provoke and humiliate Harriet, So maybe that's
Speaker 1: why in eight forty three Actor set up a separate
Speaker 1: household from Harriet with Marie, even though he continued to
Speaker 1: financially support Harriet. Makes sense, He's like, let me get
Speaker 1: my mistress out of the same house. As my wife.
Speaker 1: That seems clean, cleaner now. Despite her overbearing personality, or
Speaker 1: maybe because of it, Marie would remain with Hector for
Speaker 1: twenty years. BiblioTech National says, even so, he barely mentions
Speaker 1: her in his memoirs, the quote too great loves which
Speaker 1: have exerted such a powerful and long lasting influence that
Speaker 1: he writes about r Stell his first love, and Harriet
Speaker 1: his muse. Wow, the eighteen year old from his childhood
Speaker 1: and then and then the woman he stalked, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still is the reason he decided to
Speaker 1: become a composer, because he had feelings he couldn't express
Speaker 1: other ways. So I can see him being like, I'm
Speaker 1: still thinking about hers. You know, there's still some love
Speaker 1: in my heart. I guess I still think of the
Speaker 1: eighteen year old when I was twelve. Sometimes Jillian, Jillian, Jillian.
Speaker 1: He's married now, I'm just kidding. Stay away, Jillian, get
Speaker 1: out of here. Even though they were estranged, Hector still
Speaker 1: loved Harriet. In eighty eight, Harriet suffered a series of
Speaker 1: strokes that left her mostly paralyzed and needing constant nursing
Speaker 1: and actor pay for everything, and when he was in Paris.
Speaker 1: He visited her all the time, sometimes twice a day.
Speaker 1: So again, he's loyal the guy. Once he decides he
Speaker 1: loves you, that's it. You're in his heart forever. So
Speaker 1: Berrioz was critiquing and conducting music with maybe not a
Speaker 1: lot of financial success, but at least he had a
Speaker 1: lot of respect. But critics wrote scathing stuff about his operas,
Speaker 1: his symphonies, and his songs, including this gem quote. His
Speaker 1: strange composition consisting of nothing but noise, disorder, a sickly
Speaker 1: and sterile exaltation bare Leo's musically speaking, is a lunatic,
Speaker 1: a classical composer only in Paris, the great city of quacks. Damn.
Speaker 1: His music is simple and undisguised, nonsense hard, that's way harsh. Tie.
Speaker 1: This quote was printed in Interlude dot HK, a website
Speaker 1: that's dedicated to Cli School musical history and theory, but
Speaker 1: it's not attributed to anyone in particular, so we're not
Speaker 1: sure of their source here. But in eighteen fifty actor
Speaker 1: decided to play a little trick on his musical critics,
Speaker 1: so he wrote a choral piece about the shepherds saying
Speaker 1: goodbye to the baby Jesus as the Holy Family left
Speaker 1: Bethlehem for Egypt, and he called it La fance ducrist.
Speaker 1: In November eighteen fifty he set up a concert to
Speaker 1: perform l'enfance, which you're hearing some of now, and he
Speaker 1: told the press that during the restoration at the Parisian
Speaker 1: Church San Chappelle, they had discovered this piece of music
Speaker 1: written on ancient parchment behind the wall, and Hector had
Speaker 1: discovered that it was written by Pierre Ducray, a brilliant
Speaker 1: but forgotten music master of San Chapelle in sixteen seventy nine. Now,
Speaker 1: Actor had had a lot of trouble translating it because
Speaker 1: it was written in an archaic notation, but he knew
Speaker 1: the world had to hear it. The press a this
Speaker 1: ship up like peanut butter pretzels baby. They praised Burlios
Speaker 1: for uncovering this valuable masterpiece. They fell over themselves admiring
Speaker 1: the beauty of the orchestration. One particularly caustic critic of
Speaker 1: Hector's wrote quote, Burlos would never be able to write
Speaker 1: a tune as simple and as charming as this little
Speaker 1: piece by old Ducray. There's that must have been the
Speaker 1: most satisfying thing you ever read. Oh my god, he
Speaker 1: was laughing so hard when he read that. He's got
Speaker 1: a bit interlude, writes quote, as you might well imagine,
Speaker 1: Burlios was greatly amused by the wave of admiration for
Speaker 1: the fictitious ducree. He quickly confessed his subterfuge, but the
Speaker 1: Ruse assured that the oratorio received unanimous approval from the
Speaker 1: music critics far and wide, love that he was like
Speaker 1: surprised I wrote this one and there and that and
Speaker 1: far and wide. They're like, good one, good one, you
Speaker 1: got us. I mean they could now suddenly be like,
Speaker 1: oh well, now it's a piece of ship. Yeah right right.
Speaker 1: You know now that I listened to it again, it's
Speaker 1: not very good. Lunatic made it. That's awesome. In March
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty four, Harriet Smithson Barlos died, and in
Speaker 1: October of that same year actor married Marie Rescio. He
Speaker 1: explained to his son Louis that he quote had to
Speaker 1: duration had become you will understand indissoluble. I could neither
Speaker 1: live alone nor abandon the person who had lived with
Speaker 1: me for fourteen years. He's like, sorry, kid, I mean
Speaker 1: she's been around for a long time, it would be
Speaker 1: rude not to for real. So he wrote a five
Speaker 1: act opera and continued his music critique and conducting, and
Speaker 1: he was doing really well in Prague, Germany and Russia particularly,
Speaker 1: and he was writing prose with Maria's collapse raider and
Speaker 1: manager until eighteen sixty two. She died of heart disease,
Speaker 1: but Actor wasn't left alone. Marie's mother was devoted to him,
Speaker 1: so she lived with him and took care of him
Speaker 1: until the end of his life. I imagine with Marie being,
Speaker 1: you know, like eleven years younger than him. Uh, mom
Speaker 1: wasn't too much older than him. Oh, maybe not. I
Speaker 1: didn't think about that. Maybe they were closer in age.
Speaker 1: I was just like I guess he wasn't universally unpopular
Speaker 1: with mothers in law. Maybe he didn't call her hippopotamus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that probably helped. But it wasn't long before another woman
Speaker 1: distracted him from his grief, a woman almost half his age,
Speaker 1: twenty six year old Emily. Well that's you know, That's
Speaker 1: what I love about Actor. He keeps getting older and
Speaker 1: his wife say the same age shove by real the
Speaker 1: DiCaprio of his time. Yeah, it altho let's for DiCaprio.
Speaker 1: I was pushing it. I know, DiCaprio's like, what am I?
Speaker 1: What am I dating retirees? Now, Emily's last name is unknown.
Speaker 1: She was possibly married, and they may be met in
Speaker 1: the Montmarked cemetery, but that's about all that's known because
Speaker 1: they were only together for a little less than a year,
Speaker 1: so not a lot of information about her. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little rebound. Now. Not long after they split up,
Speaker 1: Emily died, but Hector didn't know anything about it until
Speaker 1: six months later he was walking in a cemetery and
Speaker 1: stumbled upon her grave. Now, the research says by this
Speaker 1: point he was financially comfortable, he had sold the publishing
Speaker 1: rights for his five act opera Letroyen, but he was
Speaker 1: really depressed because both his wives and both his sisters,
Speaker 1: who again he had been very close to his wife,
Speaker 1: had all died. Um, you know, he's getting older, so
Speaker 1: his contemporary start to die as well. He's just got
Speaker 1: a little morbidly obsessed with death. So you got to
Speaker 1: wonder what this little interlude and the cemetery he did
Speaker 1: for his mental health. For a minute, he should be
Speaker 1: so weird to just basically just a few months ago
Speaker 1: broken up with this woman and then find out she died. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was just a mindful find out by Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not even like you heard about it, but just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm here with your you know you're grave.
Speaker 1: That's creepy what happened, you know? And he has no
Speaker 1: right to ask, no right to know, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, it just must have been a weird It's
Speaker 1: a very weird thing to come. So who could Hector
Speaker 1: turn to at this late stage in his life, where,
Speaker 1: you know, all of his loves had been dying, um,
Speaker 1: and he was starting to feel pretty pretty worried about
Speaker 1: it himself. Well, of course, he just went back to
Speaker 1: his very first love. Still. She was now a sixty
Speaker 1: seven year old widow, and when he asked if he
Speaker 1: could visit her, she welcomed him warmly. So heads up, Jillian,
Speaker 1: I'll call you one day. One day when he's sixty seven.
Speaker 1: The age gap means a lot less when you're right seven,
Speaker 1: and he's like whatever. Now. It's not clear if these
Speaker 1: two had a physical relationship, but he visited her for
Speaker 1: three summers, and he wrote to her nearly every month
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. In eighteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: he learned that his own son, Louis, who had been
Speaker 1: a naval captain, died of yellow fever in Havana, so
Speaker 1: he tried to distract himself with work. He did a
Speaker 1: series of concerts in Russia and the tour was a
Speaker 1: huge success, both critically and financially, but it really sapped
Speaker 1: what was left of his strength, and when he got
Speaker 1: home to France visibly unwell, he passed away in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine. He was buried in montmart Cemetery with both
Speaker 1: of his wives by his side, and one presumes right
Speaker 1: around the corner from Amalie. Maybe so I wondered that too.
Speaker 1: Chose it because it was like a way to honor
Speaker 1: that connection as well. Yeah, if it's just where their
Speaker 1: plot was available, I don't know, bury me with all
Speaker 1: my bunnies except Camille except oh wow. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the that's the crazy love life of Ector Burlio all
Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah, I don't know. Would it feels
Speaker 1: sorry for this guy or to think he's a lunatic?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that was kind of his whole thing,
Speaker 1: his whole life. Of people are like I don't know
Speaker 1: whether to love you or hate you or what's going on? Crazy?
Speaker 1: Are you okay? I don't know. It's like trying to
Speaker 1: murder suicide at one point. But then he's like a
Speaker 1: really good husband. Even after he cheats on you and
Speaker 1: runs off with a mistress, he's still real devoted, super strange.
Speaker 1: I mean, but like they weren't very happy together right
Speaker 1: that point, so it's almost like the only way he
Speaker 1: could show is like she clearly didn't want him around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's, you know, just to try and relate
Speaker 1: to that about that success thing. Um, going back to
Speaker 1: Harriet and talking about that, Um, you know how that
Speaker 1: relationship started to tterior rate if she was seeing all
Speaker 1: his success and uh and she her career was was floundering.
Speaker 1: I got that. Um. I started to think about that
Speaker 1: when we haven't been auditioning lately. We are, we're with actors,
Speaker 1: but we have not been auditioning the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: But what we we kind of shortly after our honeymoon,
Speaker 1: we sort of doubled down on it, and we're getting
Speaker 1: ready to audition more. And we started to go out
Speaker 1: there a little bit, and I was getting some like
Speaker 1: decent feedback, but not many parts, a couple of student
Speaker 1: films and things, and Diana goes out and like immediately
Speaker 1: everything she auditions for that she's cast, Like it was
Speaker 1: happening way faster and more successfully for you. And I
Speaker 1: was like, would I would I get mad if like
Speaker 1: she ends up being a really successful actress and I'm
Speaker 1: you know, doing whatever, hanging out and I mean, like, no,
Speaker 1: that sounds fucking great, Like I would totally be a
Speaker 1: house husband. If you were making a bank that sounds
Speaker 1: awesome to me. But if you were doing it in
Speaker 1: what I always wanted to do with my life, I
Speaker 1: would definitely feel a little like, damn, wow, it's so
Speaker 1: easy for her. I know. I think that was all
Speaker 1: the same. And we talked about that with a couple
Speaker 1: of acting teachers we had that are married, and uh,
Speaker 1: I was like, do you get jealous when like why
Speaker 1: do you book something and the other one has it
Speaker 1: worked in a while? Like what's that? Like? Is it
Speaker 1: hard at home? And um, at least the wife kat
Speaker 1: diers name, she's a very good actress, awesome stranger things.
Speaker 1: He's Jason McDonald, he's on TV. They run Drama Inc.
Speaker 1: In Atlanta, a great place anyway, she was like, no,
Speaker 1: it's all a win. We have to consider ourselves a unit.
Speaker 1: Each win that we each have is a win for
Speaker 1: both of us. And I was like, that's so healthy.
Speaker 1: I hope I can one day get my brain right.
Speaker 1: And they have. They have so many wins between them
Speaker 1: all the time. I mean, they're steady working. Welcome to Flatch.
Speaker 1: Jas McDonald's new show that he's on, So check that
Speaker 1: out on Hulu, and then I think prime it's The
Speaker 1: Devil to Pay, which also has another local actress named
Speaker 1: Daniel dead Eiler in it, and she is amazing, so
Speaker 1: good watch stuff. Anyway, that's our plug. Look, just listen
Speaker 1: to us on everything we recommend and that's all you
Speaker 1: need to do. Yeah, let us run your life for you,
Speaker 1: and then go check out actor Berlioz's music while you're
Speaker 1: at it. Support him. He's a great musician, local, too
Speaker 1: local to earth, and he's got some cool stuff. He
Speaker 1: really does. Yeah. I listened to him a lot while
Speaker 1: I was researching this, of course, um, and I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed having him on in the background. It is very dramatic,
Speaker 1: intensely dramatic stuff. You were saying that people have said
Speaker 1: of his music that it was kind of like movie scores.
Speaker 1: Yeah there were movies. Yeah, I totally get that because
Speaker 1: I love movie scores to the point where I can't
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is annoying about me. I'm so
Speaker 1: anti spoiler that I remember. I remember when the Matrix
Speaker 1: two was about to come out and my friend We're
Speaker 1: driving around in his Toyota Corolla or whatever, and he
Speaker 1: had like, you know, the six discs eat each ranger,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I got the Matrix two soundtrack
Speaker 1: and the movie wasn't going to come out for like
Speaker 1: another week. We already had our tickets, and I was like,
Speaker 1: don't play it. He's like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to hear it. And
Speaker 1: then I'm hearing it again during the movie and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: something crazy's about to happen because I know the music
Speaker 1: is about to change. That's just how my brain works.
Speaker 1: It's terrible, but I love movie scores after I see
Speaker 1: the movie, or if I'm never going to see the movie.
Speaker 1: It's such a cool, like, uh, discipline a movie score. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you really have to get the mood right.
Speaker 1: A bad score will suck up a good movie, right,
Speaker 1: And you can't just let I mean, I've never composed
Speaker 1: a movie score, but my my assumption is you can't
Speaker 1: really let the music guide you because you're beholden to
Speaker 1: the cut of the scene as well. Right Like, if
Speaker 1: I think the music is supposed to do a certain
Speaker 1: thing here, but then you know Spider Man jumps off
Speaker 1: the building. Oh now it's got to do something different, different,
Speaker 1: which might be why people thought his compositions were so
Speaker 1: weird and erratic and stuff, that he was serving whatever
Speaker 1: story had going on in his mind that they didn't see,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And especially because they were
Speaker 1: mostly concerts. Again, there's not a lot of staging without
Speaker 1: the opera, So if you're just listening to the music,
Speaker 1: you know, he's clearly got some real storytelling going on. Again,
Speaker 1: he's got he's doing Opium and go into a witches
Speaker 1: Sabbath and all this stuff. So he's like, I think
Speaker 1: he's seeing colorful pictures and the time that he's trying
Speaker 1: to express to you through music. And at the time,
Speaker 1: people were much more used to you serve the music.
Speaker 1: The melody goes this way, you you you uh, let
Speaker 1: that movement play out until you know the appropriate time
Speaker 1: to change it or something, and he didn't like really
Speaker 1: play by those rules. Yeah, I wonder. It makes me
Speaker 1: wonder there's probably like, um, I don't know psychologists and
Speaker 1: anthropologists who have who have answered this, but I wonder
Speaker 1: if back in the day, as your thinking of music
Speaker 1: and you're imagining the scenes, if he's sees it in
Speaker 1: his mind like a movie, like he's there like we do,
Speaker 1: because I imagine everything like a movie. I know different
Speaker 1: people have different minds I and how they perceive stuff,
Speaker 1: or if he envisions it as if he's sitting in
Speaker 1: an audience looking at a stage, you know, like when
Speaker 1: he's seeing this this which is Sabbath or whatever is
Speaker 1: he's seeing it like we would like a third person camera,
Speaker 1: as if he's really there looking through his own eyes
Speaker 1: and cutting between shots, or if he's imagining it like
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a at a stage and two dimensions
Speaker 1: more or less he was playing at horizontally in front
Speaker 1: of me in one long take. I wonder how that worked.
Speaker 1: I feel like assume the second because that's what he
Speaker 1: was used to seeing, and opera and everything done like that.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can think and cuts before you've
Speaker 1: seen a cut but I guess you can because somebody
Speaker 1: thought of it, right, I mean, cuts come from a
Speaker 1: translation of our imagination, right maybe, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do think that's so interesting that some people see
Speaker 1: pictures and some people see words. Oh my god, are
Speaker 1: like And when you think, do you think in words
Speaker 1: like complete sentences or is it more like vague like
Speaker 1: again pictures, I guess, or just colored emotions or something like.
Speaker 1: I think that's so interesting that we don't even think
Speaker 1: the same way as each other. I think in vivid
Speaker 1: visual detail, and my Inner Voice is a constantly running
Speaker 1: podcast of like active conversation. And I don't think that's
Speaker 1: necessarily better or worse than than any alternatives. But I
Speaker 1: know some people, like friends of ours, who talked about like,
Speaker 1: I don't see pictures in my head, um. Some people
Speaker 1: say they see like literal words like typed words, um,
Speaker 1: and some people so yeah, you know, I don't. I
Speaker 1: just have the concepts and ideas without the actual you know,
Speaker 1: image itself. And I think that's it's fascinating. I bet
Speaker 1: there's some benefits to either one in terms of how
Speaker 1: you can, um, you know, getting the image in my
Speaker 1: mind out of it and onto paper or onto a
Speaker 1: camera or whatever is hardest thing because it's so detailed
Speaker 1: that it's frustrating sometimes. And I wonder if, like, if
Speaker 1: you just thought in concepts, it might be easier to
Speaker 1: pick up a camera and kind of get the general
Speaker 1: idea of what you're thinking of without being so trapped
Speaker 1: by the details. Yeah, I wondered if because I think
Speaker 1: in words definitely and not many pictures. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: I hear them a lot. I know you do. And
Speaker 1: I was about to say, I think it makes me
Speaker 1: like I do have to talk to myself a lot.
Speaker 1: I have to talk through I'm like, okay, well, what
Speaker 1: would be the best way to do this because this
Speaker 1: is at the other way is blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: it's like think saying it out loud helps me organize
Speaker 1: it in a better way than just listening to myself
Speaker 1: in my head. Um. But I wonder if you think
Speaker 1: more in pictures, you don't need to do that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I need a pensive to like
Speaker 1: pull right, But all I want is a is a
Speaker 1: dream projector you know, we're just like plugs into your
Speaker 1: head and then whatever thoughts you're imagining are just boom
Speaker 1: projected out of the wall. The things I would show
Speaker 1: you all you have your minds blown? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: straight to horror listen. I don't know. Sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 1: I would hate it for people to see you it's
Speaker 1: this tide. Well, I definitely would want to censor button
Speaker 1: some of the really dumb questions I've asked, or horrible
Speaker 1: things I've thought, like, nobody needs to know about that,
Speaker 1: We'll just keep that to ourselves. Well all that bit
Speaker 1: of a tangent, but um, but that's where these stories
Speaker 1: take us to new and exciting places. Just like actor BerliOS,
Speaker 1: you never know what's going to come next in this
Speaker 1: In this song we're composing called Ridiculous Romance this opera created.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I really enjoyed learning about actor BerliOS. I
Speaker 1: had never heard of him before. I was a little
Speaker 1: bit familiar with Symphony Fantastic. When I heard that, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, I definitely this has happened in
Speaker 1: the background of my life at some point. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: by the way to hear more, Symphony FANTASTICQ is in
Speaker 1: the Shining soundtrack. It was recently in Righteou Gemstones, and
Speaker 1: apparently it's also in Star Trek first contact I saw,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell you the score from it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's in a lot of stuff, so you've
Speaker 1: you've probably heard it. Yeah, so check him out. I
Speaker 1: really think his music was worth listening to and just
Speaker 1: think about whatever movie comes to your mind. Imagine Harriet,
Speaker 1: how dare you be successfully even though that's the only
Speaker 1: reason I married you in the first place. For Harriet.
Speaker 1: So thanks again to Mahi mans Half for this idea
Speaker 1: to get into the world of composers. These romantic composers
Speaker 1: all screwing each other, and it's funny to think of
Speaker 1: them as like the rock stars of their day, and
Speaker 1: it seems like they kind of were, you know, smashing
Speaker 1: hotel rooms and doing it on top of the piano
Speaker 1: and list was like the axl Rows of his time. Awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: please let us know what you thought of this episod.
Speaker 1: Let us know how you perceive your imagination in your mind.
Speaker 1: I would I love that conversation, So tell us if
Speaker 1: you if you've got something interesting about it. We would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Would love to read some
Speaker 1: of your words out on the show, So shoot us
Speaker 1: an email. You can reach us at ridic Romance at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com right or slide into the d m
Speaker 1: s on social media. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Dynamite Boom, and I'm at O Great. It's Eli and
Speaker 1: the show is at predict Romances. Reach out. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to drop us a review on Apple Podcasts. Throw us
Speaker 1: a rating on Spotify. If you're on there, you can
Speaker 1: do a little five star ratings. Super fun stuff helps
Speaker 1: us out and we love hearing from you, so uh.
Speaker 1: Enjoy yourselves and we will catch you next week on
Speaker 1: the next episode. Cannot wait? Take care? How ye? So
Speaker 1: long friends, It's time to go. Thanks so listening to
Speaker 1: our show. Tell your friends name's uncle's indes to listen
Speaker 1: to our show. Ridiculous Well n