Hector Berlioz

French composer, conductor, critic and writer of books on music. Known for his orchestrating genius with program music, his works included symphonies, voice and choral numbers, oratorios and operas.

The son of a country doctor who rebelled against his dad, he went to Paris with no musical training and within eight years had written one of the world's greatest symphonies, the "Symphonie fantastique" which mirrored his passion for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson and which can always fill a modern concert hall.

Berlioz often complained of French bureaucratic interference in musical life. When he was commissioned in 1837 to write a requiem for the 1830 revolution, he said he had to camp out in the government offices to get paid. A man full of contradictions, he was an idealist but also extremely practical. As a composer he was concerned with every detail, the layout of the orchestra, how to organize a concert, how to publicize it.

Life was always a struggle for Berlioz. He could not make his music pay and his love affairs were not very successful. Whenever he met a woman who seemed to be ideal, he would go overboard and then find that reality was a cold lesson. He found it difficult to find a woman to feel as passionately about him as he was about her.

Admired for his musicianship, he also wrote two volumes of "Memoirs," which were published in 1870.

He died on 8 March 1869, 12:30 PM, Paris.