Composer names: change request, Hector Berlioz

[pml]

Hello all. The above poll will run for a fortnight until approximately December 10, so if you have any knowledge and interest in one of France's greatest and most neglected composers, I would be interested in your comments and your votes.

I have to confess to a bugbear about the representation of Berlioz's music on IMSLP.

Firstly, the name IS wrong. If you're going to include the entire name, then the correct style is apparently Louis-Hector Berlioz, not Louis Hector Berlioz. (Hint: there's a missing character that is not alphabetical.)

Arguably however, the correct name is Hector Berlioz: he never signed himself with "Louis" on the front in his letters, newspaper articles or other writings, he never issued any of his compositions, or his books and the treatise under the name "Louis Hector Berlioz", and was known by every member of that generation of great 19th century Romantic composers as "Hector". For his composer name to be described as "Berlioz, Louis Hector" is almost as silly as having a page for the works of "Wagner, Wilhelm Richard". (Oops!)

The disparity is even more pronounced if we compare some other composers of similar status in music history, or French musical life:

Claude Debussy is not represented by his full name, which is Achille-Claude Debussy.
Gabriel Fauré is not represented by his full name, which is Gabriel Urbain Fauré.

(Any French experts care to advise me why certain styles demand the hyphen and others do not? Some of my near relatives are named in the French style with the hyphen, while others were not.)

Outside France:
Jean Sibelius is missing his middle name, Christian.
Giuseppe Verdi is missing his middle name, Fortunio.
etc. etc. etc.

I am not for a moment suggesting changing the composer names on IMSLP for Debussy, Fauré, Sibelius, or Verdi (or numerous others I could have picked out). However, Berlioz (and Wagner) are clearly anomalies, and the name that is currently ascribed to Berlioz is wrong according to the New Berlioz Edition, Grove's Dictionary, and Wikipedia. Someone else can take up Wagner's cudgel.

Here are the full names of five successive generations of the Berlioz line, father to son:

1. Joseph Berlioz (1700–1799), merchant
2. Louis Joseph Berlioz (1747–1815), lawyer
3. Louis Joseph Berlioz (1776–1848), doctor
4. Louis Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), composer
5. Louis Berlioz (1834–1867), naval captain

You will note that the composer is the only one to have a unique name represented nowhere else in his lineage (likewise for three or more generations when considering cousins, uncles, etc), and by which he is known to the world at large. Both the composer's father and son, however, were known by their first name (rather than a middle name in the case of Hector's father).

To quote from the index of the definitive English-language Berlioz biography (there is no equivalent in French):

Berlioz, Hector (HB), christened Louis Hector, but always called Hector, [...]

Thus I'm proposing to remove "Louis" from all of the work pages and the composer category page. There will be no possible ambiguity from this change, until there is another Hector Berlioz. I think I'm safe in saying that he was, more so than any comparable 19th century French composer, "one of a kind".

At the same time, I'm also proposing to replace the Opus numbers for works – which are non-chronological, frequently inconsistent, and ambiguous – with the Holoman catalogue numbers. I've added composer composition lists for the both New Berlioz Edition and the Holoman catalogue which I'm in the process of tidying and wikifying, and I propose the Holoman catalogue (volume 25 of the New Berlioz Edition) be the standard for identifying and naming works.

We are also lucky to have one of the editors of the NBE as an occasional visitor and contributor to IMSLP (hint: the NBE catalogue page is a giveaway).

Regards:—

Philip Legge (the sometime Melburnian composer, conductor, singer, musicologist, editor, writer, novelist, Berlioz enthusiast, pedant, etc. etc. etc.)

as opposed to

Philip Matthew Legge (which is my actual full name, in case there was anyone remotely similar, that might possibly be confused with me)

[reinhold]

Outside France:
Jean Sibelius is missing his middle name, Christian.
Giuseppe Verdi is missing his middle name, Fortunio.
etc. etc. etc.

Even better example, where noone would ever argue to use the baptised name:

• Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (he used "Amadeus" or "Amadé" as the Latin translation (with a French touch) of the latinized Greek Theophilus!)

So, I'm all for using the name under which a compose is best known.
Cheers,
Reinhold

[Melodia]

Actually I think the name was Gottlieb, not Theopolis.

[aldona]

Gottlieb (German) has the same meaning as Theophilus (Latin)

= one who loves God (or one whom God loves)

I suspect it was probably recorded officially as "Theophilus" in the formal church baptism record, but would have been known to German-speaking friends and family under the name "Gottlieb" (as well as all the other names).

aldona

[reinhold]

Gottlieb (German) has the same meaning as Theophilus (Latin)

= one who loves God (or one whom God loves)

Not to be nitpicking, but Theophilus is actually Greek with a Latin ending -us:
theos = god, philos=friend
The latin version is Amadeus (Amicus=friend, deus=god).

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_name

Again, this just shows how careless composers are using their baptised names, so we should also adjust to this. I think they should be able to choose the name under which they are recognized...

Cheers,
Reinhold

[pml]

There are also composers who deliberately put their works under the names of pseudonyms, to separate musical from other writing personas:
e.g. real name/pseudonym
Philip Heseltine/Peter Warlock
Arnold Bax/Dermot O'Byrne

One chose a pseudonym for his music, the other a pseudonym for his poetry.

Reinhold: I find it amusing that Mozart used the Latin form, rather than the German or Greek versions of that part of his name, and then usually signed it as Amadé, giving it a somewhat French twist...

There is an MS convention (to save ink and vellum, you know) of shortening Latin suffixes by drawing an indicative squiggle, usually over the final letter of the shortened word, e.g. to quote the Credo of the Mass, "& un~ sanct~ catholic~ & apostolic~ Ecclesi~", so you could say Mozart was "having his cake and eating it" by having the accent on "Amadé" be his shorthand for the omitted "-us".

The fact is that children have no choice in their own names, and rarely go to the (sometimes awkward) lengths to change their names by deed poll to something they would prefer. Of the composers in my immediate circle, I only know of one who went to the trouble of changing her name by deedpoll to replace an unwanted middle name with one of her own invention (as well as her own choice, obviously). Another despises his first name, but hasn't decided it worth the trouble of legally changing it.

My own mother, who's written a few pieces of music from time to time, found out at the age of sixty-five that the name she thought was correct was not put down correctly on her birth record by her father, and was understandably very upset that the birth record, in her mind, was "wrong".

PML

PS Speaking of "having cake and eating it too", are there any examples of published works by Arnold Bax setting to music a poem by Dermot O'Byrne?

[Lyle Neff]

When I was in college, a music publisher wanted to issue two of my church anthems. They were fairly conventional in style. My major professor (composition) advised me to use a pseudonym, which I did for those two pieces, but not after that. 'Course, they're out of print now, so it doesn't make much difference, anyway.