Trivia / Hector Berlioz

• Development Hell: Les Troyens took years to get past bureaucracies to the stage, the Paris Opera kept hemming and hawwing on it, despite it being the only Opera company that could afford to stage a full performance. Berlioz then had to cut his opera into two different works (La prise de Troie (acts 1 and 2) and Les Troyens à Carthage (acts 3-5)) and only the second part was staged during his lifetime at the much smaller Théâtre Lyrique. A full premiere for Les Troyens wouldn't be seen until 1890, 21 years after Berlioz's death. Even before that, he thought of an opera based on the Aeneid for years, and Virgil was never far from his mind even in his childhood. It wasn't until the 1850s when he finally composed it.
• Follow the Leader: Berlioz codified many of the structural and orchestral innovations of the Romantic Era that would be expanded upon by later composers. For example, Berlioz composed leitmotifs in Symphonie Fantastique and other works before Wagner's operas, and his treatise on orchestration was highly influential in developing the modern orchestra.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Perhaps Berlioz's most famous musical piece is the Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz himself thought it was his Requiem Mass, as he wrote to a friend: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I should crave mercy for the Messe des morts."