Hector Berlioz

The French Romantic composer is best known for his 1830 symphony "Symphonie fantastique." This five-movement piece is a landmark of program music, specifically written to tell a semi-autobiographical story of obsessive love.

The "idée fixe" is a recurring musical melody that Berlioz pioneered to represent a specific character or emotion. In "Symphonie fantastique," this melody is used to represent the musician's obsessive vision of his beloved.

Despite being a masterful composer, Berlioz famously never learned how to play the piano. Instead, he was a skilled guitarist and flutist, and he orchestrated his complex massive scores without the aid of a keyboard.

Berlioz was wildly infatuated with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he saw perform Shakespeare in Paris. He composed the symphony to express his obsessive, unrequited love, and the two eventually married in 1833.