The last century was not a particularly happy one for the two greatest composers of the romantic era. There’s Franz Liszt— you remember him, don’t you? Magpie collector of pianistic glitter? Lothario of Europe? And there’s Hector Berlioz. You know, the “one work” man? No technique? Freakish and grotesque? And, as a consequence of all of the foregoing, a thoroughly embittered critic? Musical history, like the other sorts, is written, at least in the short run, by the victors, and the victors were anything but kind. Berlioz died a broken man, thwarted and frustrated throughout his career by the indifference and spite of the French musical establishment. After his death, biographers and commentators continued to embroider the same old fabric. Sacheverell Sitwell, for example, treated Berlioz as some sort of brilliant but alien force, enslaved by his “strange schemings.” Debussy thought Berlioz a “monster.” Stravinsky found his reputation as an orchestrator suspect and Verdi found him lacking in the “calm and … balance that produce complete works of art.” Perhaps it was just a matter of fate: wrong place, wrong time, with Liszt and Berlioz being simply meant to take the bullet for all of the perceived failures of romanticism. Or maybe not. Regardless of their reputation among non-musicians, their influence on their contemporaries and musical heirs was so profound that Western music could not possibly have developed as it did without them.

Berlioz’s music did achieve some lasting recognition in England, Germany, Austria, and Russia, but it