BERLIOZ & NICE

March 8 - November 8, 2019
Terrace Tour Bellanda
Castle Hill - access ascent Lesage - Nice

"That is I want the warm air and embalmed nice scent; This is the life and joy that come running to flying, and music who kisses me, and the future that smiled at me; and I stay in Nice a month wandering in the woods of orange trees, to dive into the sea, sleeping on the heaths of the mountains of Villefranche, to come, from the top of this radiant Observatory ships, pass and disappear silently. It is how I spent in Nice twenty most beautiful days of my life.
O Nizza! I found nothing more beautiful that this inspired Hill, Capri or the glorious Bay of Salamis cannot be compared. I found my city, it's Nice. »

From the memoirs of Hector Berlioz

The year 2019 mark the 150^th anniversary of the death of Hector Berlioz, exceptional figure in the history of music. Great romantic and avant-garde composer known for its originality, he was also a writer and a prolific critic.

On this occasion, from 8 March to November 8, 2019, the service of the historic heritage of the city of Nice offers an exhibition on the composer and stays he spent in Nice, including one in the Bellanda Tower in 1844. The vernissage will be held this Friday, March 8 at 4 p.m., followed by a presentation dramatised in two voices with reading of the correspondence of Berlioz.

These exhibition panels complement the school mediation mechanism proposed within the Bellanda tower by the heritage service. They will also be a point of stage of the course guided the 2^nd half of 2019 'Castle Hill '. Exposure is also part of the project planning and landscape restoration of the Castle Hill.

Nice is a city that Berlioz is particularly fond. Landscapes, the light, the colors, the mildness of the climate come from writings and his musical works. Through multiple matches and the story of his memoirs, the exhibition "Berlioz and Nice" recounts three stays of the composer to Nice, as well as places of memories which are dedicated to him.

During his first visit, from 19 April to May 21, 1831, when the Bay of angels seduced him and stimulates his epistolary fever and creative, he undertook several musical works such as the opening of King Lear.

For Berlioz, Nice is a place synonymous days happy, creative and healing. He returned so recovering in September 1844 and there composed a new opening, The Tower of Nice, in tribute to the Tower of Ponchettes. This work will be revised later and renamed the privateer.

Berlioz returns one last time on the Cote d'Azur in March 1868 after a long winter tour in Russia. Unfortunately, this trip will be marked by two successive falls, which it will never recover completely.