Ravel and Berlioz

As a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet unfurled before a Paris audience in 1827, one theatregoer got more than he bargained for. He not only ‘glimpsed the whole heaven of art’ on hearing Shakespeare’s text, but also fell madly in love with Harriet Smithson, the young Irish actress playing Ophelia. That audience member was a young composer, Hector Berlioz. Artistic possibility, passionate love and unerring striving fused in him. He became the great Romantic he’s known as today, and set about thrusting all his feelings into a yearning, heartfelt symphony, the Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz’s untouchable, captivating musical language was born.