Hector Berlioz place of death Paris
Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy, choral pieces including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ, his three operas Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict, and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.
The elder son of a provincial doctor, Berlioz was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession. His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize – the Prix de Rome – in 1830, but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence.
At the age of twenty-four Berlioz fell in love with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, and he pursued her obsessively until she finally accepted him seven years later. Their marriage was happy at first but eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout.
Berlioz completed three operas, the first of which, Benvenuto Cellini, was an outright failure. The second, the huge epic Les Troyens (The Trojans), was so large in scale that it was never staged in its entirety during his lifetime. His last opera, Béatrice et Bénédict – based on Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing – was a success at its premiere but did not enter the regular operatic repertoire. Meeting only occasional success in France as a composer, Berlioz increasingly turned to conducting, in which he gained an international reputation. He was highly regarded in Germany, Britain and Russia both as a composer and as a conductor. To supplement his earnings he wrote musical journalism throughout much of his career; some of it has been preserved in book form, including his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844), which was influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. Berlioz died in Paris at the age of 65.1860–1869: Final years
In June 1862 Berlioz's wife died suddenly, aged 48. She was survived by her mother, to whom Berlioz was devoted, and who looked after him for the rest of his life.Les Troyens – a five-act, five-hour opera – was on too large a scale to be acceptable to the management of the Opéra, and Berlioz's efforts to have it staged there failed. The only way he could find of seeing the work produced was to divide it into two parts: "The Fall of Troy" and "The Trojans at Carthage". The latter, consisting of the final three acts of the original, was presented at the Théâtre‐Lyrique, Paris, in November 1863, but even that truncated version was further truncated: during the run of 22 performances, number after number was cut. The experience demoralised Berlioz, who wrote no more music after this.Berlioz did not seek a revival of Les Troyens and none took place for nearly 30 years. He sold the publishing rights for a large sum, and his last years were financially comfortable; he was able to give up his work as a critic, but he lapsed into depression. As well as losing both his wives, he had lost both his sisters, and he became morbidly aware of death as many of his friends and other contemporaries died. He and his son had grown deeply attached to each other, but Louis was a captain in the merchant navy, and was more often than not away from home. Berlioz's physical health was not good, and he was often in pain from an intestinal complaint, possibly Crohn's disease.After the death of his second wife, Berlioz had two romantic interludes. During 1862 he met – probably in the Montmartre Cemetery – a young woman less than half his age, whose first name was Amélie and whose second, possibly married, name is not recorded. Almost nothing is known of their relationship, which lasted for less than a year. After they ceased to meet, Amélie died, aged only 26. Berlioz was unaware of it until he came across her grave six months later. Cairns hypothesises that the shock of her death prompted him to seek out his first love, Estelle, now a widow aged 67. He called on her in September 1864; she received him kindly, and he visited her in three successive summers; he wrote to her nearly every month for the rest of his life.In 1867 Berlioz received the news that his son had died in Havana of yellow fever. Macdonald suggests that Berlioz may have sought distraction from his grief by going ahead with a planned series of concerts in St Petersburg and Moscow, but far from rejuvenating him, the trip sapped his remaining strength. The concerts were successful, and Berlioz received a warm response from the new generation of Russian composers and the general public, but he returned to Paris visibly unwell. He went to Nice to recuperate in the Mediterranean climate, but fell on rocks by the shore, possibly because of a stroke, and had to return to Paris, where he convalesced for several months. In August 1868, he felt able to travel briefly to Grenoble to judge a choral festival. After arriving back in Paris he gradually grew weaker and died at his house in the Rue de Calais on 8 March 1869, at the age of 65. He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him.
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