Fantastic Symphony from Berlioz’ life

Not like many classical composers that are widely praised today, Hector Berlioz was not a born music prodigy who would start composing as early as 6 years old. On the contrary, he just turned out to be a diligent student who would pounce on music books to build a steady theory basis in his head. A simple human, he was full of worries, joy, anxiety, anger and other human emotions that were of course reflected in his creative work. They say that out of all existing emotions love is probably the strongest one and the most powerful. So was it for Hector. Today his “Symphonie fantastique” is in the very forefront of his entire repertoire, and is apparently an outstanding music work not only because of its innovations in the programmatic symphonies form but mostly because of its vigorous send to the listener. The piece has five movements instead of the common four and depicts various scenes from the life of an artist who desperately fell in love and was left without mutuality. Hope, love, despair, death, witches’ Sabbath, joy, magic – all mixed in this masterpiece. The real love story, however, even though without the fairy-tale touch, was even more dramatic and unfortunately ended sadly: Berlioz’ passion Harriet Smithson reciprocated his feelings only after a few years of his fruitless efforts but their marriage broke shortly.