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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

Hector Louis Berlioz's personal life reads somewhat like a Mills and Boon novel! He was born in La Côte-St André, Grenoble, France, in 1803. A doctor's son, he also studied medicine. But his heart was in a musical career. From an early age he learned to play the flute and the flageolet (an early type of flute). Later he also learned the guitar, but never the pianoforte.

Whilst at Medical School he took further music lessons and started to compose an opera, then an oratorio. Three years later he entered the Paris Conservatoire, studying music with Reicha and Lesuer.

At this point he fell passionately in love with Shakespeare, and with a Shakespearian actress, Harriet Smithson, whom he saw playing Ophelia in the Kemble's Company when they were performing Hamlet at the Odéon. He pursued both loves, married Harriet, and composed a Dramatic Symphony - Roméo et Juliette, his Opus 17. They later divorced and he formed a lifelong liaison with the singer Marie Recio. Hector died in Paris in 1869.

Berlioz wrote a great deal of wonderful music, and strongly influenced many of his fellow composers with his advanced musical thinking. The background music to this page is the beautiful Shepherd's Farewell from his oratorio L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Opus 25.

Relax and enjoy one of the world's great miniature musical masterpieces . . .

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