Berlioz on getting paid for the Grande Messe des Morts

Berlioz had been promised 10 000 francs for the Grande Messe des Morts, about £18,400 in today’s money. After months of waiting, he finally received this sum, with which he had to pay his choristers, the tenor Duprez, the conductor Habeneck and the copyists (no one-click multiple printing off the master file in those days!)

‘I ended up with absolutely nothing. I assumed I was going to be paid at last by the Ministry of the Interior [which had commissioned the piece]. Sancta simplicitas! as Mephistopheles says; one month, two months, three months, four months, eight months went by and I still hadn’t got a cent. [...] I was in desperate need of money. I resigned myself to going back to the office of the directeur des Beaux-Arts and hanging around conspicuously for several more pointless weeks. I was getting angrier and angrier, I was losing weight, losing sleep. Finally one morning, livid, I turned up at the Ministry, determined to make a scene, anything to get paid!’

The interview doesn’t go well. The director claims that there is no more money, that the money has been ‘lost’, ‘misfiled’ etc, but he assures the composer that there is talk of him for the ‘Cross’ [Croix de la Légion d'Honneur award]. Berlioz explodes:

‘I don’t give a f… about your cross! Give me my money. – But… – There is no but, I yelled, sending an armchair flying, I’ll give you until tomorrow lunchtime, and if on the dot of twelve I haven’t got the money, I am dragging you and the Minister into the biggest public scandal ever!’

The director flees the room and returns 10 minutes later with a signature for the sum of 3000 francs. As Berlioz wryly remarked, ‘somehow they’d managed to find money’. Later he was also awarded the Cross!

Hector Berlioz, Mémoires, p. 246.

Find out more

Behind the Notes homepage
On composing the Grande Messe des Morts
Listen to Grande Messe des Morts
Grande Messe des Morts: a view from the chorus
Berlioz – the snuff incident