Le Chant des chemins de fer

In 1846, on his return from a long tour of Europe, Berlioz was asked by the City of Lille to compose a cantata for the inauguration of the railway line linking Lille to Paris. Interrupting his work on La Damnation de Faust, which was then nearing completion, he set to music a poem written by Jules Janin, his friend and colleague at the Journal des débats (who was also a friend of the instigator of the commission, Pierre Dubois, a judge practising in Lille). Berlioz was himself one of the first to use the new railway line, when he travelled to Lille by train on 10 June, four days before the inauguration. On 14 June, at the Hôtel de Ville, he conducted the finale of his Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, followed by his cantata for tenor solo, choir and orchestra, which was “sung with uncommon verve and fresh voices such as we cannot find in Paris for our choirs” (letter to his sister Nanci). But in Lille all the music of Le chant des chemins de fer (conductor’s score and parts) was stolen. Found again in mysterious circumstances around 1849, the orchestral score was not published until 1903 (a piano version by Stephen Heller had however been published in 1850). The music of the cantata exceeds the specifications of an occasional work, in that Berlioz multiplied the contrasts, diversified the vocal arrangements and took exceeding care over the orchestration. He was obviously touched by the social message conveyed by Jules Janin’s poem, which was addressed to the workmen who had built the railway on “the great day, the day of celebration, the day of triumph and laurels”.