‘Oratorium eines Zukunftsmusiker’? The Pre-history of L’Enfance du Christ 1

L’Enfance du Christ is the first dramatic work for which Berlioz wrote all the words, and it alone is not connected to any of his author-heroes. In contrast to the 40-year prehistory of Les Troyens, and the composer’s passions for Shakespeare and Goethe that preceded their full realization by many years, L’Enfance was started almost by accident, in a spirit of good-humoured raillery. The incident at the soirée at Duc’s is too well-known to repeat here. ² It yielded an organ piece that, with added text, became ‘L’Adieu des bergers à la Sainte Famille’. To this independently viable piece of four-part unaccompanied choral music, Berlioz added instrumental support and a frame in the style of Italian bagpipes. He composed a fugal overture, and with ‘Le Repos de la Sainte Famille’ completed a miniature trilogy, La Fuite en Egypte. This he published in 1850, but it was not performed in its entirety until 1 December 1853, in Leipzig, and thus in German. ³ This performance inspired him to begin a sequel, eventually entitled L’Arrivée à Saïs. Last to be conceived was Part I, Le Songe d’Hérode, completing a symmetry around Part II and, indeed, around the original germ-cell, the ‘Adieu des bergers’. The whole oratorio was completed and performed in 1854 when - exceptionally for Berlioz - it was immediately enjoyed by the Paris public, and surely not just because the audience knew the story, as Théophile Gautier remarked. ⁴ 36