The life of Berlioz

by Peter Bloom

Berlioz is the quintessential romantic composer by dint of the conspicuous intermingling of art and life that marks his musical and literary output. This Life of Berlioz situates the celebrated French musician in the vibrant and highly politicized musical culture of the periods of the Bourbon Restoration, July Monarchy, Second Republic, and Second Empire in which he lived and worked as composer, conductor, concert manager, and writer. The author of the Symphonie fantastique was possessed of a fertile and fantastical imagination; he was indeed obsessed, at times, by love; but the common image of Berlioz as a misunderstood and mistreated genius (an image he did little to controvert) obscures both the solidity of his work as a musical architect and the reality of his position, explored here, as one sometimes favored by those in power.