Hector Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique 5th Movement

Romanticism was a period that started in the early 19th century, primarily in England and Germany. At first Romanticism influenced the literature world, but by 1820s musicians started to adopt the style in their music as well. Hector Berlioz was a French composer during the Early Romantics period in the 1830s. He is most famously known for his piece “Symphony Fantastique” 5th Movement composed in 1830, where he tells about his own personal love for an Irish Actress, Harriet Smithson. Hector Berlioz was born on December 11th, 1803 in La Côte-Saint-André, to a dad named Louis-Joseph Berlioz and mother Marie-Antoinette. He had five siblings, of which only two survived past adulthood (Macdonald). Unlike other composers, Berlioz was not a music prodigy. He began studying music at the age of 12, and he links his interest in the music with his “boyhood passion for Estelle Dubeuf” and with the works of Beethoven (Macdonald). When he was little he …show more content…
As a result of his father's discouragement, he never learned to play the piano, but he became proficient at guitar, flute, and flageolet. The majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces. At the age of eighteen Hector Berlioz moved to Paris to study medicine, a field in which he had no interest. After he moved to Paris, he started taking advantage of the scenery Paris had to offer. He visited the Paris Opera and the Paris Conservatoire library, both of which helped his interest in music grow significantly. (Macdonald)
Hector Berlioz’s “Symphony Fantastique” tells the story of an artist who is madly love with a woman but the woman doesn’t express the same feelings back. He