With the publication in 2005 of Volume 21 (‘Miscellaneous Works and Index’), the New Edition of the Complete Works of Hector Berlioz is nearing completion. This volume is the last one of Berlioz's musical works – although it is still not the last volume of the series, since five additional volumes (from 22 to 26) will include Berlioz's arrangements of other composers, as well as the Grand Traité d'instrumentation, the Catalogue and Berlioz's portraits.

It has been a long journey since the birth of the Berlioz Centenary Committee in 1967. Is it necessary to remind ourselves how Berlioz scholarship then still had the somewhat exotic status of a terra incognita? However, growing scholarly interest for Berlioz in English-speaking countries and Continental Europe since the 1970s has also much to do with the wider availability of his works in their most authoritative form.

Volume 21 contains all that could not have been included in previous volumes: sketches, fragments and album leaves, as well as Rêverie et caprice (in its two versions, for violin and piano, and for violin and orchestra), three pieces for harmonium, the Marche troyenne, and Restons ici, the authorship of which remains dubious. As stressed by the editors in the Foreword, several of these pieces would ‘hardly qualify as compositions but [they] should find their place in a complete edition of Berlioz's music’ (p. viii).

The Rêverie et caprice (Holoman 88) stems from Teresa's romance ‘Ah! Que l'amour une fois dans le cœur’, from Benvenuto Cellini. The song was nevertheless replaced in 1838 during rehearsals of the opera, and Berlioz reworked it as an instrumental piece at the instigation of the Belgian violinist Alexandre-Joseph Artôt, whom Berlioz had known since his studies at the Conservatoire. It was published in its orchestral version in 1841 by Richault, while the piano version was published the same year by Mechetti. Both versions were reissued in 1880 by Richault. Quite forgotten today, the piece was however fairly popular during Berlioz's lifetime, and was performed by leading soloists such as Carl Lipinski, Ferdinand David, Joseph Joachim and Henryk Wienawski. Perhaps because of its operatic origins, the piece, when reissued in 1880, was accompanied by a ‘fanciful programme’. When later included in the 1902 edition of Berlioz's works by Breitkopf & Härtel, Julien Tiersot confessed in his ‘Berlioziana’ to have been the author of the spoof.

The Marche troyenne is the other item in this volume that originated in an opera, Les Troyens. The Marche is the finale of the first act, and Berlioz later arranged it for concert use for the publisher Choudens.

Berlioz's contributions for the harmonium are also gathered in this volume: three pieces only, commissioned by Jacob Alexandre, director and proprietor of the firm Alexandre Père et Fils, that specialized in manufacturing the ‘orgue-mélodium’, since the name ‘harmonium’ had been patented by the rival firm of Alexandre Debain. Berlioz's affection for the instrument is well known, as illustrated by the reviews and other texts he wrote for the Journal des débats. Berlioz was even instrumental in popularizing the instruments of Alexandre, with whom he had a close friendship. Among the three pieces, the most remarkable is the ‘Sérénade agreste à la Madone’, which originated during Berlioz's Italian journey in 1831. The Foreword aptly recalls chapter 39 of Berlioz's Memoirs, in which he describes the musical tradition of pifferari. With its siciliano rhythm, the piece evokes the harmonies of the bagpipes and the melodic lines of the pifferi (oboe-like instruments), which struck Berlioz's imagination with their ‘cackling figures, drenching the rustic tune in a shower of outlandish ornamentation.’ (Berlioz, Critique musicale, quoted in Foreword, p. ix). The two other pieces are a ‘Hymne pour l’Élévation,’ the tone of which may be related to Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts and the Te Deum, and a Toccata. The last is a rare instance of a piece seemingly devoid of any extra-musical reference, with its title pointing towards the exercise in technical dexterity. With its walking bass and chain of suspensions played by the right hand, the piece unmistakably evokes Corelli, and it was probably intended as an ‘exercice de style’.

The rest of the volume contains several sketches and fragments of diverse interests, among which are 18 album leaves, and fragments of melodies. Among the album leaves, the fifth one, Choeur de 402 voix en langue celtique inconnue (dated 1843, Stuttgart), reminds us of Berlioz's attraction for nonsense language – which he had used in the ‘Choeur d'ombres irritées’ of the 1832 version of Le Retour à la vie. There are eight sketches from 1832–36, unidentified except for the fourth, named ‘Simph’, and probably intended as a preliminary draft of the two-movement symphony Le retour de l'armée d'Italie, while the eighth sketch may be related to L'impériale, a choral work of patriotic character.

The fragment for bass voice and orchestra from Beverley, ou le joueur (Holoman 19) is the only item surviving from a play by Bernard-Joseph Saurin that Berlioz saw in 1823 at the Théâtre de l'Odéon. Unable to arrange a performance, he quickly abandoned the project. What remains is a five-bar fragment published in 1876 in the Mémoires of the actor Adolphe Laferrière.

Other pieces found in Berlioz's sketchbooks are the incomplete melody ‘Dans l'alcôve sombre’ (Victor Hugo), probably from 1832, and from the same sketchbook ‘Partirò’, a melody Berlioz wrote between Florence and Turin also in 1832, to lyrics of his own. A later sketch, probably dated c. 1855–56, gives the outline of a melody for voice and bass line in the Phrygian mode – thus Holoman's suggestion of the date, since Berlioz was by then working on modal scales for L'Enfance du Christ and Les Troyens.

Among these fragments, certainly the most appealing is Erigone (Holoman 77), on Orphée, a prose poem by the mystic and philosopher Pierre-Simon Ballanche, a figure well appreciated in the circle of the Saint-Simoniens – notably by Franz Liszt. Most likely, Berlioz had first attempted to set the poem to music in 1835, after having written Harold en Italie and before starting Benvenuto Cellini. In 1838, Berlioz was still pursuing the project, as testified by a letter to Liszt. Yet the work remained unfinished, and the only surviving autograph, a preparation for a full score, only gives the vocal parts of the first chorus, and fragmentary cues for the accompaniment.

The volume ends with six piano arrangements, among which is the Chant des chemins de fer (Holoman 110), written for the inauguration of the Chemin de Fer du Nord at Lille. The present piano arrangement was made by Stephen Heller. These arrangements also include some more familiar works, such as Méditation religieuse (Holoman 56), originally for chorus and seven wind instruments and written in 1831. It was published in 1852 in a version for chorus with orchestra as part of Tristia. However, the present piano arrangement had been already issued in 1849, for six-part chorus, violin, cello and piano. Another piece also known as part of Tristia is La Mort d'Ophélie (Holoman 92), here in its version for female chorus with piano. The piece was originally published as a song for soprano or tenor with piano in 1842 but later orchestrated with female chorus in 1852, and published the same year as part of Tristia.

The series Bärenreiter Urtext has also reissued from Volume 15 (Songs with Piano) of the New Berlioz Edition, Berlioz's songs in two volumes, with a preface by Ian Rumbold. It is fortunate indeed to have gathered all of Berlioz's melodies in these two volumes: while the first volume assembles the most famous of Berlioz's melodies (among which are ‘Le roi de Thulé’, ‘La captive’, ‘Le jeune pâtre breton’), the second provides the cycle of Les Nuits d’été, as well as La mort d'Ophélie.