Hector Berlioz
Sign in to saveFrench composer and conductor (1803–1869)
AI overview
Hector Berlioz was a French composer and conductor who lived from 1803 to 1869 and played a significant role in shaping Romantic-era classical music. His innovative approaches to orchestration and dramatic musical storytelling left a lasting impact on how composers created and performed music in the nineteenth century and beyond.
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Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1803
- Died
- 1869
- Works
- 519
Top works
- Les soirées de l'orchestre
- רקוויאם, אופ' 5
- The orchestral conductor
- מות קליאופטרה
- Memoirs, from 1803 to 1865, comprising his travels in Italy, Germany, Russia and England
via Open Library + Wikidata
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 408,489
- Total plays
- 2,498,586
Article
Berlioz by August Prinzhofer, 1845 Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer, conductor and critic. His output includes orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy, choral pieces including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ, his three operas Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict, and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.
The elder son of a provincial physician, Berlioz was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession. His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize – the Prix de Rome – in 1830, but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence.
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1803 births1869 deaths19th-century French classical composers19th-century French conductors (music)19th-century French journalists19th-century French male writersBurials at Montmartre CemeteryChoral composersClassical composers of church musicClassical music criticsComposers with IMSLP linksConservatoire de Paris alumni