Ex. 13-4: Absence

No. 4 from Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été (Op. 7). This was the first song from the cycle to be orchestrated (Dresden, February 1843) and the first to be performed publicly, premiered by Marie Recio — Berlioz's companion who later became his second wife — in Leipzig on 23 February 1843. She was encored.

In 1868, near the end of his life, paralyzed and losing his memory and speech after several strokes, Berlioz visited his friend the singer Anne Charton-Demeur. As recounted by George Osborne: "One day he took Mme Charton-Demeur's album and wrote the refrain, words and music, of Absence: 'Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée' (Return, return, my beloved). But when visitors came, he could only smile." He died on 8 March 1869.