An extraordinary document, being a printed proof copy of pages from the chapter "Symphony in C major" from Berlioz’s "Étude analytique des symphonies de Beethoven,” with autograph additions and corrections in the hand of the composer-author. Printed extract consisting of 2 printed 12mo. pages mounted on 2 folio pages, with autograph additions and corrections (5 words on the first page and 10 lines interspersed in the second page, cut in two), all mounted in a folio volume, antique binding of crimson marbled paper with title-piece to front cover. Fine.

These pages appeared in 1844 in the second volume of his collection Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie (Paris: Jules Labitte, pp. 269-270), and had originally appeared in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris of January 28, 1838. In his own hand, Berlioz has here made several corrections to the present printed excerpt, including one of consequence: he has crossed out "Mais il n'y a rien là, de même que dans le reste de la symphonie, rien de vraiment neuf, musicalement parlant” [“But there is nothing here—just as in the rest of the symphony—nothing truly new, musically speaking”], and inscribed a less severe replacement text: "The scherzo is the first born of this family of charming badinages (scherzi), for which Beethoven invented the form, determined the movement, and which he substituted in almost all instrumental works for the minuet of Mozart and Haydn, whose movement is twice as slower and whose character quite different. This one is exquisitely fresh, agile and graceful. It is the only real novelty in this symphony.” These corrections would be incorporated in 1862 in the chapter "Étude critique des symphonies de Beethoven" in his collection À Travers chants (Paris, Michel Lévy frères, pp. 17-18).

It seems at first rather surprising that the composer whom Berlioz came to regard as the greatest of all, and whose music had such an influence on his own, was nevertheless a relatively late comer in Berlioz’s formative period – the last in fact of the major musical influences he experienced in the 1820s in Paris (Gluck, Spontini, Weber). Writing of the mid 1820s Berlioz later said ‘I had only read two symphonies of Beethoven and heard one andante, and he appeared to me like a sun in the distance, but one obscured by thick clouds’ (Memoirs, chapter 14). Eventually, Berlioz came to regard himself as one of Beethoven’s champions in France, against those of the old school who remained hostile to the new music. 

Berlioz’s distinctive contribution to the promotion of Beethoven came initially not through performances directed by himself but through his critical writings. As early as 1829 he published a biography of Beethoven in three installments, the first of his biographical assessments of composers he particularly admired (Critique Musicale I, pp. 47-61). From 1833 onwards, he published a series of detailed studies of Beethoven’s symphonies, prompted by the regular performances at the Conservatoire; these were published in a number of journals, especially the Journal des Débats and the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris (all reproduced in Critique Musicale I-III). At first, from 1833 to 1836 the sequence of the studies was dictated by the timing of the performances; in this period he covered in detail Symphonies 2-8, the most frequently performed.  In 1838 he decided to draw the studies together into a continuous sequence without following the order of the performances: the aim was to illustrate the development of Beethoven’s symphonic writing (Revue et gazette musicale, January to March 1838; Critique Musicale III pp. 373-410). It was here that he added the present study of the 1st symphony, hitherto neglected and the least frequently performed of the symphonies.