Grande Ouverture des Francs-Juges op. 3

In 1826, while still a student at the Paris Conservatoire, Berlioz began the opera Les Francs-Juges to a libretto by his friend, Humbert Ferrand. Although he abandoned this ambitious project, he reused some of the material in a few works, including the Symphonie fantastique and the Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale. In particular, he kept the opera’s overture, premiered on 26 May 1828 at the first concert to feature his orchestral music in a programme dedicated completely to his works. He had already heard Weber’s Der Freischütz when he was composing this orchestral piece, but had not yet come to know Beethoven’s symphonies, which he did not discover until March 1828. This is a clear indication of the originality of the Grande Ouverture des Francs-Juges and its combinations of instruments. On the day after its premiere, the young composer wrote to his father: “In order to depict the terrifying power of the Judges of the Secret Court and their sinister fanaticism, I decided to have all the brass instruments play a deeply ferocious melody in octaves. Ordinarily, composers only use these instruments to reinforce the expression of massed sound; however, the decision to give the trombones an out-and-out melody performed by them alone, with the rest of the orchestra trembling beneath, resulted in the monstrous, novel effect which so amazed the performers.” This somewhat melancholy, tormented overture also contains a contrasting theme, in the major mode, which is fleet-footed and cheerful: introduced by the violins, it is actually derived from a quintet of 1818-1819. As was often the case with Berlioz, retrospection proved to be fundamental to the creative act, despite an apparent lively spontaneity. It is worth noting that a first version with two ophicleides in different keys was wisely scaled back to an orchestration using only one of these instruments. Believed lost, an edition of the original version was rediscovered in 2009 at the Geneva Conservatory during an inventory carried out in collaboration with the Palazzetto Bru Zane.