The Hector Berlioz five-step guide to courtship

Embrace those flutterings, the sleepless nights and those tears. In true Bohemian style Berlioz always wanted to create a symphonic drama that would be a projection of his entire emotional life. On the the title-page of Symphonie fantastique Berlioz wrote ‘My heart’s book inscribed on every page…All I have suffered, all I have attempted’ quoting Victor Hugo. So not at all melodramatic.

From the moment he had seen her in the roles of Ophelia and Juliet, Berlioz was obsessed with a tormented love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. She was barely aware of his existence.

Making your intentions clear to someone with flowers, letters or a light serenade is totally passé, right? Writing a symphony where a young artist falls in love with a woman and then proceeds to overdose on opium, murders the woman and foresees his own execution is what’s called for. Oh, and there are shepherds and a satanic orgy to help complete the romantic mood.

Harriet Smithson did eventually become his first wife. We don't really get it either...

Before eventually marrying Harriet Smithson, Berlioz was engaged to Marie Félicité Denise Moke. While he was away in Italy her mother wrote announcing that her daughter intended to break their engagement and was to marry Camille Pleyel instead. Enraged, Berlioz decide to return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée and her mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan, going so far as to purchase a costume to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to their house. He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols to kill them with.

However, despite careful planning, Berlioz realised he may have overreacted and didn’t go ahead with the plot. Jolly good job too.

Berlioz described the above events twelve years after they happened so perhaps the story should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Berlioz discovered that age-old inconvenience that living under the same roof as his new wife wasn’t as fun as worshipping her from afar. Their marriage turned out to be a disaster as both were prone to violent personality clashes and outbursts of temper. The pair separated in 1844 and Berlioz moved in with his mistress Marie Recio who then became his second wife.

Images 2 and 4 reproduced with permission of the Hector Berlioz website

Image 5 reproduced with permission of the Musée Hector-Berlioz