Portraits · Composers · XIII of XVII

Hector Berlioz

1803–1869 · Composer

Music is, at one and the same time, both a sentiment and a science. … It is this union of knowledge with inspiration which constitutes the art.
La musique est à la fois un sentiment et une science; elle exige de la part de celui qui la cultive, exécutant ou compositeur, une inspiration naturelle et des connaissances qui ne s'acquièrent que par de longues études et de profondes méditations. La réunion du savoir et de l'inspiration constitue l'art.
Hector Berlioz · essay on music, 1844

Read it in the source →

Hector Berlioz printed this in 1844, in an essay on what music is. Inspiration alone was not enough, he argued, and neither was study: the art lay in their union, won by long study and profound meditation.

Fourteen years earlier he had written the Symphonie fantastique.

'De la musique en général', in Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie (Paris: Jules Labitte, 1844), vol. 1, pp. 241–242; reprinted as 'Musique' in À travers chants (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1862), pp. 1–2. English: 'Music', in A Critical Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies … and an Introductory Essay on Music, trans. Edwin Evans (London: W. Reeves, 1913), p. 2.

The originals

Sepia photograph of Hector Berlioz in 1863, seated, his head resting on his hand, a mass of wavy grey hair — **The likeness**PHOTOGRAPHED BY PIERRE PETIT · 1863Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (Pierre Petit died 1909). BnF print (Gallica btv1b84543244), restored on Wikimedia Commons.

A handwritten orchestral score page headed Allegro agitato e appassionato assai and Passions, with a red pencil line down the bars — **Symphonie fantastique, 1830**The Allegro headed Passions, in the first movement. The BnF counts many erasures and pasted-on corrections in this score, worked on from 1826 to 1833.Autograph full score, 1830, f. 33. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Musique, MS-1188 (Gallica btv1b100202058). Public domain.