Self-revelations of tormented great composer; musical life in Paris, Wagner and other contemporaries, musical opinions, much more. 11 plates.

A Travers Chants is the collection of writings selected from his thirty-odd years of musical journalism. These essays cover a wide spectrum of intellectual inquiry: Beethoven's nine symphonies and his opera, Fidelio; Wagner and the partisans of the "Music of the Future"; Berlioz's idols - Gluck, Weber, and Mozart. There is an eloquent plea to stop the constant rise in concert pitch (an issue still discussed today), a serious piece on the place of music in church, and a humorous and imaginative account of musical customs in China.

French composer Hector Berlioz believed in love at first sight. When he was 23, he attended a performance of Shakespeare s play Hamlet and fell head over heels in love with Harriet Smithson, an English actress who had a leading role. Harriet didn t show any interest in him. She ignored his letters. When he tried to meet her backstage, she ordered the guard to throw him out.Berlioz was hurt and angry. He wanted revenge. He got it by murdering Harriet �musically. She inspired Symphonie fantastique, his most famous work. The hero kills his beloved, is executed for the crime, and the symphony ends with a bizarre dance of ghosts, goblins, and other monsters.

A captivating and sumptuously illustrated biography, Berlioz is not only a complete account of the Romantic era composer, but also an acute analysis of his compositions and a description of his work as a conductor and critic. 139 halftones, 3 maps, 160 musical examples.

In this delightful and now classic narrative, written by the brilliant composer and critic Hector Berlioz, readers are made privy to 25 highly entertaining evenings with a fascinating group of distracted performers.