RomanticHector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was born in the Isère, in the French Alps.
Hector Berlioz’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1803👶 Birth
Born on 11 December in La Côte-Saint-André, son of a doctor
- 1815📚 Trainingage 12
Teaches himself flute, guitar and harmony
- 1816🌍 Meanwhile
Maelzel patents the metronome (1815–16)
- 1822🌍 Meanwhile
Champollion deciphers hieroglyphs
- 1827❤️ Private lifeage 24
Falls for the actress Harriet Smithson in Hamlet
- 1830🎼 Workage 27
Symphonie fantastique; wins the Prix de Rome
- 1834🎼 Workage 31
Harold in Italy, for Paganini
- 1837🎼 Workage 34
Grande Messe des morts (Requiem)
- 1839🌍 Meanwhile
Photography is invented (daguerreotype)
- 1840🌍 Meanwhile
Adolphe Sax invents the saxophone (c. 1840)
- 1847🧳 Journeyage 44
Conducting tours in Germany and Russia
- 1869🕯️ Deathage 66
Dies in Paris on 8 March
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Excerpts of up to 90 seconds, freely licensed recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
Once upon a time…
Hector Berlioz was born in the Isère, in the French Alps. His dad was a doctor and sent him to Paris to become a doctor too. But Hector preferred music: he gave up his studies and became a composer!
He fell in love with an actress he had seen on stage. For her he wrote the Symphonie fantastique, which tells a strange dream with a ball, a march to the scaffold and a witches’ dance.
Berlioz loved gigantic orchestras: for his Requiem he used sixteen timpani and four groups of trumpets placed in the four corners of the church! He also wrote a book explaining how to use every instrument.
In France people found him too loud, but abroad he was cheered as a conductor.
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