Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz fell in love for the first time with Estelle Fornier, six years his senior, at the age of twelve. However, unlike other early crushes, he carried the flame till the end of his life.

On 11 September 1827, while attending a production by a traveling English theatre company, he saw Harriet Smithson, an Irish-born actress, playing Ophelia. He was immediately infatuated with her and began to flood her with love letters. Harriet did not respond.

Next in 1830, he started a relationship with Camille (Marie) Moke, a talented pianist, who got married to a wealthier person while he was away in Rome.

Hector Berlioz was born on 11 December 1803 at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère. His father, Louis Berlioz, a physician, is believed to have introduced acupunctural techniques in Europe. His mother, Marie-Antoinette, was a devout Roman Catholic.

Hector was the oldest of his parents’ six children, three of whom died young. He was very close to his two surviving sisters, Nanci, younger to him by three years and Adèle, by eleven.

He started his education at the local seminary. Unfortunately, due to the on-going war with Great Britain and other European powers, it closed down in 1811. Thereafter, he continued his education under his father.

At the age of 10, he was briefly placed at a local school to study Latin. However his father soon took him out and began to supervise his entire education himself. However, he could not inspire in little Hector any love for classical languages. The boy detested learning the verses by heart.

Instead, he spent hours studying the atlas, spellbound at the complex patterns created by islands, straits and capes. He soon started wondering what kind of vegetation, climate or people those distant lands would have.

Accordingly from 1822, Hector Berlioz informally started studying music under Jean-François Le Sueur, the director of the Royal Chapel and professor at the Conservatoire. Here he learned to experiment in program music.

When in the spring of 1823, he made a trip to La Côte, his family tried to make him abandon music and concentrate on medicine. However, on returning to Paris, he resumed his study of music. During this period he wrote his first piece, ‘Estelle et Némorin’, which has now been lost.

Sometime now, he also wrote his first article on music. Written in the form of a letter, it was published in the journal ‘Le Corsaire’ in its 12 August 1823 issue.

On 12 January 1824, Berlioz was made a Bachelier ès sciences physiques. Despite receiving his degree, he continued to concentrate on music, completely abandoning medicine later in the same year. Also in 1824, he wrote, ‘Messe solennelle’, a setting of the Catholic Solemn Mass.

The piece was first performed at the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris on 10 July 1825. Later that year, he began to compose the opera ‘Les francs-juges’, which was completed the following year. Concurrently, in the winter of 1825, he composed ‘La Révolution grecque’ (La Scène héroïque).

Hector Berlioz left Paris on 30 December 1830, arriving in Rome in March 1831. There he put up at the French Academy in the Villa Medici. However, he found the city distasteful and therefore, took every opportunity to go out of the city, enjoying the country side.

While in Rome, he received news that his fiancée had married somebody else. Enraged, he set out to kill her but sanity prevailed as he reached Nice. While staying there, he composed the overture ‘Le roi Lear’ and started working on the overture ‘Rob Roy’, and ‘Le retour à la vie’, later called ‘Lélio’.

Thereafter, he travelled to Pompeii, Naples, Milan, Tivoli, Florence, Turin and Genoa. These visits provided him with rich experiences, which influenced his later works. Finally he returned to Paris in November, 1832.