to make his works known. He turned restlessly from one form of composition to another, tending always to adopt bizarre and extravagant projects, usually involving an unwieldy apparatus of performance. Amid his audacities there were times when he came close to sublimity and also when he displayed extreme lyric beauty, but on the whole his creative powers were unequal to the tasks he put upon them. Nevertheless, the vigor of his artistic ambition could not be overlooked, and his special studies in all details of instrumentation made him an authority. His historical importance, then, lies not so much in his philosophy of musical art, or in his absolute contributions to musical literature, as in the stimulus he gave to the study of musical ways and means. The fact that he came just when he did was of importance in furthering the movements of which Wagner and Liszt were the leaders. And the circumstance of the war between France and Germany just after his death favored the consideration of his works by his countrymen when anything bearing the German stamp would have been distasteful.
Hector Berlioz (d. 1869), born in 1803 not far from Lyons, was the son of
an able doctor who finally sent him to Paris as a medical student. In youth
he learned the flute and guitar, but at Paris from 1822 he embarked upon
general musical study, though involving a break with his father. At the
Conservatoire he had courses with Reicha and Le Sueur, supporting himself
by singing in a theatre-chorus until at length his father's favor was regained.
As early as 1825 he essayed work in the largest forms—a Messe solennelle
with orchestra (given at St. Roch and in 1827 at St. Eustache), an oratorio,
an opera, etc. Two overtures followed, including that to Waverley, which,
with a Scène héroïque grecque, were given at the Conservatoire (1826)—the
first of five attempts to win the Prix de Rome. In spite of Cherubini's opposition,
success came in 1830 with the cantata Sardanapale. Before this he
had written most of the 'symphonie fantastique,' Épisode de la vie d'un
artiste (1829), and some fragments later used in other works. Unhappy at
Rome and Naples, he secured leave to return after only a year and a half,
bringing the monodrama Lélio, the overtures to King Lear and Rob Roy, the
scena La captive and sketches of the overture Le corsaire. In 1833 he
married the Irish actress Henrietta Smithson (they separated in 1840).
Already well known as a ready writer, from 1834 he was on the staff of the
new Revue et gazette musicale and for many years remained noted as one of
the most brilliant of Parisian critics (essays collected 1853-63). His greater
compositions during these years were the symphony Harold en Italie (1834),
the Messe des morts (1837), the grand opera Benvenuto Cellini (1838), which
was not popularly successful, the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839)
and the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale (1840), besides several cantatas and
