Born
December 11, 1803
Died
March 8, 1869
Country
France
French composer Hector Berlioz was born December 11, 1803 in La Côte-St-André, Isêre, the son of a physician. Although his father encouraged his early musical inclinations with flute and guitar lessons as well as preliminary study of the pianoforte, it was assumed that Hector would follow his father’s medical profession. After two years of medical school, Hector rejected a medical career in favor of musical composition and attended the Paris Conservatory, where he studied composition with Le Sueur.
Berlioz’s life was an endless series of great successes and great failures. He won the Prix de Rome only after his fourth attempt. His personality was eccentric, hyper-romantic, and given to sometimes bizarre self-promotion. Although he enjoyed the friendship of many of the successful composers of his day, he was regarded as unconventional and often outre. His compositions followed no conventional style and he often borrowed heavily from earlier compositions in the creation of new ones. However, his musical creations represent a gifted and skilled sense of musical textures and harmonies.
In spite of—or perhaps because of—his incomplete musical education, his compositions tended to be radical departures from the orchestral and melodic styles of his day. He loved bold sounds, irregular phrase lengths, and his music tended to be expressive of his own extravagant emotional ideation. He married several times, had one son, and many romantic affairs. He was continually in financial difficulties. However, research has since shown that his principle income, earned from his journalistic work for the Journal des Débats and the Gazette Musicale, along with an inheritance following his father’s death left him more comfortably situated than his Mémoires suggested.
Although he composed prodigiously in many musical forms, he is best remembered for his unique Symphonic Fantastique, a “symphony” in five movements based on the French translation of De Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater. He wrote several operas, of which only the overtures Benvenuto Celini, Roman Carnival, and Le Troyens are still heard today. Choral works include Romeo and Juliet, L’Enfance du Christ, Damnation of Faust, and Requiem.
Harold in Italy is a quasi-viola concerto-cum-symphony based on Byron’s Childe Harold and inspired by Berlioz’ eighteen month visit to Italy in 1834. The principle viola represents the hero expressing his dreams during his wanderings in Abruzzi, where Berlioz had spent much of his time in Italy.
Berlioz’s later years found him often ill with vague “nervous complaints,” which may have been psycho-somatic reactions to the ups and downs of his musical and personal life. He died in Paris on March 8, 1869 after a year of severe debilitation.
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Video
Get out your opera glasses and prepare to take a look at the history and evolution of an art form over four hundred years old. Learn how singers train and condition their voices, become familiar with some of the stage’s most tragic love affairs, and discover how theatre and music combined can tell epic stories in unforgettable ways.
Meet great composers, explore the vast musical world of the orchestra, study the science behind the instruments, and discover how classical music is anything but boring.
Get inside the mind of a composer—from a popular song, to a Broadway musical, to a symphony, how does a composer write music?
You might see some of these instruments when you come to the Kennedy Center, watch a performance by your school band, or at any other concert you attend! Click the slides to learn more about some of the most frequently spotted instruments in each family.
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