Harold in Italy, Op. 16

Harold in Italy, Op. 16, symphony in four movements with viola solo composed by Hector Berlioz in 1834. Berlioz wrote the piece on commission from the virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini, who had just purchased a Stradivarius viola. Upon seeing Berlioz’s first movement, however, Paganini found the piece to be insufficiently flashy for his own performance, and he never played it, though he confessed to admiring it and readily paid the agreed fee.

Berlioz later explained his inspiration for the work in this way:

My idea was to write a series of scenes for the orchestra in which the solo viola would be involved as a more or less active character, always retaining its own individuality. By placing the viola in the midst of poetic recollections of my wanderings in the [Italian] Abruzzi, I wished to make of it a sort of melancholy dreamer after the manner of Byron’s Childe Harold. Thus the title: Harold in Italy.

The composition is structured in four long movements. The first, titled “Harold in the Mountains,” carries the subtitle “Scenes of Sadness, Happiness, and Joy.” It is an introspective introduction to the protagonist, a subtle theme, first played by the solo viola, that echoes throughout the work. The second movement, “The March of the Pilgrims Singing Their Evening Prayer,” contrasts Harold’s lush romantic perspective with the pilgrims’ gentle religious fervour. The “Serenade” of the third movement depicts a mountaineer of the rugged Abruzzi region singing to his beloved. The English horn serves as the voice of the singer, yet Harold is there too, in the solo viola, observing the intimate scene. For the final movement, Berlioz turns to a more-animated episode, “The Orgy of the Brigands,” but, even amid the tumultuous action, he recalls the earlier scenes, with musical echoes of the previous movements.