Les nuits d'été

Les nuits d'été (Summer Nights), Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It is a setting of six poems by Théophile Gautier. The cycle, completed in 1841, was originally for soloist and piano accompaniment. Berlioz orchestrated one of the songs in 1843, and did the same for the other five in 1856. The cycle was neglected for many years, but during the 20th century it became, and has remained, one of the composer's most popular works. The full orchestral version is more frequently performed in concert and on record than the piano original. The theme of the work is the progress of love, from youthful innocence to loss and finally renewal.

Berlioz and the poet Théophile Gautier were neighbours and friends. Gautier wrote, "Berlioz represents the romantic musical idea … unexpected effects in sound, tumultuous and Shakespearean depth of passion." It is possible that Berlioz read Gautier's collection La comédie de la mort (The Comedy of Death) before its publication in 1838. Gautier had no objection to his friend's setting six poems from that volume, and Berlioz began in March 1840. The title Nuits d'été was Berlioz's invention, and it is not clear why he chose it: the first song is specifically set in spring rather than summer. The writer Annagret Fauser suggests that Berlioz may have been influenced by the preface to a collection of short stories by his friend Joseph Méry, Les nuits de Londres, in which the author writes of summer nights in which he and his friends sat outside until dawn telling stories. In a 1989 study of Berlioz, D Kern Holoman suggests that the title is an allusion to Shakespeare, whose works Berlioz loved.

The cycle was complete in its original version for voice (mezzo-soprano or tenor) and piano by 1841. Berlioz later made arrangements for baritone, contralto, or soprano, and piano. The piano version is not as often performed in concert or on record as the orchestrated score, which Berlioz arranged between 1843 and 1856.David Cairns wrote in 1988 that the success of the piano version was impeded by the inferior quality of the piano part in the published score: it is not Berlioz's own, and Cairns described it as "a clumsy, inauthentic piece of work".

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