Vocal Performance Analysis Of Berlioz’s Song Cycle Les Nuits D’ete

Hector Berlioz was the founder of French Romanticism, composer, conductor and musical theorist. Best known for his composition Symphonie fantastique in1830, Berlioz’s works were the true start of French Lieder. By breaking away from the customary trends, he introduced ground-breaking musical style for French Lieder. Among his small number of musical works, the song cycle Les nuits d’ete for piano and voices was undoubtedly his most representative composition. Berlioz used Theophile Gautier’s6short poems from "La Comedie de la Mort" as texts. This article starts from stepping into Berlioz’s life, introduces the creation of both music and lyrics and performances of the work. More importantly, this article chooses classic Chinese lyrics translated by Professor Xu Yi in1982which is elegant and as faithful as possible to the original (existing studies are mostly based on the Chinese translation from "A Collection of Lieders by Berlioz, Bizet and Duparc", edited by Yu Yixuan and Chen Yu, published by People’s Music Publishing House). This performance analysis of6songs is based on the personal experience and emotion of the writer. Hopefully it can be of some help to other performers.