theatre. When at a performance of “Iphigénie en Tauride,” for instance, cymbals were introduced into a ballet passage where Gluck has only strings and when trombones were omitted from a passage in Orestes’ third act recitative Hector would suddenly shout with all his might: “There are no cymbals there; who has dared to correct Gluck?” Then, in an Orestes passage: “Not a sign of a trombone; it is intolerable!” Again, during a performance of Dalayrac’s “Nina” Berlioz missed a violin solo scheduled to be played by the violinist, Baillot. Just as the cue for the expected solo was reached a furious voice was heard to exclaim: “So far good, but where is the violin solo?” “Very true”, cried someone else, “it looks as if they were going to leave it out. Baillot, Baillot, the violin solo.” The pit took fire, the entire house rose and loudly demanded that the program should be carried out according to schedule. Before long people dashed into the orchestra, overturning chairs and music desks, smashing the kettledrums. Meanwhile, Hector who had sown the wind tried to control the whirlwind with sarcastic protests: “Gentlemen, don’t smash the instruments! What vandalism! Don’t you see you are destroying Father Chenie’s beautiful double-bass, with its infernal tone?” But the mob was beyond control and broke not only instruments but innumerable seats and music stands as well!

* * *

It was 1827 and he was beginning to harbor more far-darting ambitions. In June he planned to try for the Prix de Rome, though he really laid small value on the “honor” the winning of it conferred. How often was it no more than a means to an end!

Three times Berlioz competed (four if we count the preliminary test of 1826, in which he failed), but not till 1830 did he carry off the honor. In 1827 he had written for the purpose “La Mort d’Orphée”, in 1828 he gained the second prize, in 1829 (when no prize was finally given) he turned out a “Cléopâtre”—which, had it been less audacious, might have won him the award—while in 1830 his cantata, “Sardanapale”, finally achieved the ultimate distinction. But this honor, so highly regarded among the rank and file of Frenchmen, was for Hector soon to turn to something like Dead Sea fruit.

On Sept. 11, 1827, Kemble’s company from London inaugurated a Shakespearian season at the Odéon Theatre. “Hamlet” was the first offering, with the famous English actor in the title role. The Ophelia was Henrietta Smithson, tall, lithe and Irish. All literary and artistic Paris was on hand. From the moment the daughter of Polonius stepped on the stage Hector was lost! No thunderbolt could more completely have devastated him. When the performance ended he rushed home, avoiding all acquaintances to whom he might have had to talk. Then he went out again and walked all night along the Seine, determined to wear himself out to obtain the temporary solace of sleep. It was useless. Next evening the visitors were giving “Romeo and Juliet”. Hector dashed to the Odéon early in the day and bought himself a ticket, to be sure no unforeseen hitch might prevent him obtaining his usual admission. As he knew no word of English, he procured a translation and strove for a few hours to recreate in his mind a picture of Henrietta Smithson before again looking upon her in the flesh. If possible the effect of the previous evening was intensified.

He would now wander aimlessly through suburbs and countryside, sometimes even sleeping in open fields; or he would set to music Irish lyrics by Thomas Moore; or steep himself in more Shakespeare, dabble in Byron and Walter Scott, set about discovering Goethe and acquainting himself with “Faust!” He moved from the quarters of his friend Charbonnel and installed himself in a room in the Rue Richelieu directly opposite the house where Henrietta lived. He had never so much as exchanged a word with the actress who, for her part, never yet dreamed that such a person as Hector Berlioz existed—let alone that he loved her wildly. Nonetheless, Hector made a point of avoiding further Shakespeare performances—or so at least, he claims in his Memoirs. “More experiences of the kind would have killed me!” But the inspiration of this Juliet and Ophelia, further enhanced by the romantic literature with which he was suffusing himself and the grandeur of those Beethoven works he was beginning to discover, were stimulating his creative fancy. He wrote overtures based on “Waverly”, “King Lear”, “The Corsair”; he wrote (in 1829) “Eight Scenes from Faust” and a “Ballade of the King of Thule, in Gothic Style” (things which were later to form the basis of “La Damnation de Faust”); he composed a set of “Nine Irish Songs”; above all, he wrote (and then revised) a work which was to become, in some respects, his most widely known and famous, the “Symphonie Fantastique”—a kind of symphonic phantasmagoria, with Henrietta as its chief motivation and himself as its chief actor.

It was not till December, 1827, that the actress first had a fleeting glimpse of her worshipper. This happened quite by chance at a rehearsal for a benefit performance at the Opéra-Comique where Hector was to offer an overture of his and where some of the English actors were to perform a couple of Shakespearian scenes. By this time he had begun to write her letters, to which she never replied, for they frightened her and she presently ordered her maid not to accept any more from the postman. When Berlioz at a rehearsal caught sight of Henrietta talking to her colleagues backstage he uttered a loud cry and rushed from the theatre, wildly wringing his hands. Thinking she had to do with a madman the actress begged her associates to watch him closely, for “she did not like the look of his eyes”. The mop of red hair that surmounted his head like an umbrella, his gaunt visage, fiery appearance and generally hysterical demeanor must have given her reason for alarm and she probably breathed more freely when she left Paris for Holland.

* * *

Everyone who has interested himself even slightly in Berlioz is doubtless familiar with the lurid fiction the composer invented to form the “plot” of the “Fantastic Symphony”. In this “Episode in the Life of an Artist” a high-strung youth is represented as seeking release from the torments of disappointed love by means of an overdose of opium. Instead of killing him the drug afflicts him with a succession of perturbing, not to say terrifying, grotesque or macabre visions. Through each of them there moves the image of the Beloved, musically-represented by a recurrent string of notes—a sort of representative theme, or “idée fixe”. The youth is a plaything of passions, reveries, jealousies, frenzies at the outset; then he sees his idol, apparently indifferent to him, the central figure at a brilliant ball; amorous thoughts mingle in his mind with dark presentiments as he wanders over the countryside, rendered more melancholy by the pipings on rustic instruments of two love-sick shepherds, till thunderclaps interrupt their mournful dialogue. Then he dreams he has murdered his beloved and is marched to the scaffold; after which his disembodied spirit becomes the sport of a noisome rout of demons, witches, succubi and other infernal things, among whom the cherished one, now a devilish harridan, pursues him, while the Dies Irae resounds blasphemously in his ears.

Doubtless much of the astounding score incorporates musical ideas originally conceived for other projected works. One way or another, the “Fantastique” is a formidable, if overdimensioned monument of its period, and a landmark of history. With all its flamboyant and parodistic monstrosities this