Hector Berlioz & Harriet Smithson

not really. I kind of thought it was boring for a very long because I was just like, well, whatever, it's like, I don't know, it's one of those things. It's like Christo and Jean Claude, where you like, I didn't appreciate it until I really sat down to appreciate. I think is for me. I was like, whatever, background music, it's the thing that plays in the elevator or whatever.

Moving on. And then like finally like really sat down and listened to some and I was like, you know what, there's a lot of story in here, and there's a lot of drama, and they're trying to like lead you from one, you know, trying to trying to attract the melodies and how that all works and the harmonies and everything, and I'm just not a musician myself. So I'm like, is a lot complicated going on. I don't know what it is, but I'm I now appreciate it a little

bit more than I did. But I think for me, classical music very much like uh, movie scores or something like. I usually have whatever kind of visuals in my head when I listen to music, too, Like I usually like putting images to it. So there's some fun. Like I like that dynamic attitude that getting classicals sometimes where it switches to oh, all of a sudden, something crazy is happening.

It got really intense, don't don't, don't, don't, don't don't you know, and uh, and then feelings soften up and there's some piccolos tuting and you know, I love the dynamics. I guess that's cool. I think Fantasia, Yeah, I really

did a lot. That sounds laughable, I guess, but it was cool to like see the you know, hear music you had already heard before, and then know that animators had listened to it and come up with an entire story about painting elephants, dancing and ballerina or what you know, Right, So you're like, oh, okay, that's kind of cool. I can hear a story in here, as you say, the dynamics kind of happening or whatever. It was, the hippo's hippo ballerinas with the alligators. Yeah, yeah, we're at all

those two too, so graceful. Yeah, I loved them. Well. Yeah, researching this gave me an even more, an even greater appreciation classical music. Absolutely because I did as you said. I put a bunch of his of Hector Berliel's music on while I was researching it, and I was like, this is pretty cool, so worth listening to put them on Spotify. Yeah, it's fun. Oh hey everybody, Oh my god. By the way, so happy to have you back for

this episode. Obviously we're talking about classical music today. Yeah, and I and it is not you know, you get the same image in your head of the opera and snooty elite folks like you know, with their noses in the air, being very dull and stuffy, and that's just not what's going on at all. Definitely not. I think about Amadeus, it's such a miss. Little Mozart, he was a messy right. Mozart, by the way, I was always

my favorite growing up. I had a friend of high school has who loved Mozart, and I was like, all right, let's see what this Mozart guys all about. I was like, you know what, it will be the first to say it. Mozart's pretty good. Take over here. And I did love the movie Almadeus. It was so good. Um. I definitely like took piano for like a year or something, so

I played a little bit of Beethoven. They always want you to learn like fur lease or whatever you know to joy you done, done, done, done, done, dune done. They're very easy to joy. But moon like the lotto was my favorite. And then they're like now at the left hand and it's like my left hand can't even write. Why can't it do all this? It can't do all this now? Moonlight Sonata was always my beautiful It's so beautiful and like, I don't know, there's just something It's

just puts you in your heart. It really does. I was just gonna say it gets right to your heart, right Yeah. But anyway, so I was really excited about getting into this episode was suggested by Mahi Manta on Instagram. So At Mahi Manta, thank you for this idea. Absolutely keep them coming. We love these suggestions. Yeah, yeall, y'all are sending in some really good making our job easy. Um,

But hang on a second. I have to stop us before we can get into this episode, because while I was putting together this previous episode about and Bonnie, Calico Jack and Mary read I stumbled across something that a big mistake, an embarrassing mistake that we did. This is a self correction, but it's been a minute. We have to go put ourselves into corrections corner. You're it's a loser.

Oh what do we do this time? Well, okay, so we were thinking about various things that might have been going on with Mary Reid and a Bonnie and Calico Jack, and I tried to take us into speculation station, and I tried to come up with something on the spot, and I said speculation port and we laughed, it's okay, it's all right, it's not great. I knew it wasn't great at the time, and then several times later in

the episode we just said speculation station. So we were we were driving a train across the ocean like fools, when in fact, months ago, in our episode about Robert Culiford and John Swan, we already solved this problem, and we called it hypothetical harbor, so come on, good. So I just know that are devoted listeners who listened to every episode two or three times heard me say speculation port and they were like, hello, you already Heavilyn, It's

called hypothetical harbor. Why aren't you pulling into hypothetical harbor? And you're right, we just it's been too long and I'd forgotten about it. So I'm embarrassed. Right, Well, take a couple of laps around the house as punishments, useful exercise. Yeah, we could use that, all right, all right, wearing out of that mess, shake it off, shake off the mistake to ourselves, and moving on. Yeah. So, yes, today we're not in speculation port or hypothetical harbor. We're in a

world of classical music. To talk about Hector BerliOS. Can I say it should be hector hector? Okay, it should be actor Berlioz. And I looked at the pronunciation from Julian, our favorite pronunciation guide, and he said, influence, you would call in hector Berlioz. But in English, of course, it is okay to say hector Berlioz. Still okay, Well, thank you okay, so I guess Ector Burlios was a I'm going to say it like that every time, like Eastern France, Russia,

very very dear Russia. Ector Burlios was a composer, a music journalist, and a critic in the mid eighteen hundreds whose work has been derided and praised alike since he was alive, up until today, when music writers still hotly debate whether or not he was any good. His music was super informed by his love life, and boy, what

a love life. Love caused him to get into music in the first place, right his most well known symphony to plot and then abandon an elaborate murder, suicide and so much more so, let's hear about the very dramatic Ector b I'm ready, hey, their French come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type of person at all, and

abstract concept a concrete wall. But if there's a story with the second clans ridiculous roles a production of iHeart Radio. Ector BerliOS was supposed to go into medicine like his father He was born in southeast France in eighteen oh three and educated at home, but when he was only twelve years old, he fell in love for the first time with his next door neighbor, Estelle du buff Nothing like the girl next door, but she was already eighteen.

You know, he's twelve, she's eighteen. She's kind of like when I was twelve. I definitely had a crush on several eighteen year olds I think, you know, like my older sister's friends, the baby sitter, whatever exactly, and I'm sure they were like, Okay, that's cute. Don't you go outside and play, so pretty much the same thing going on for poor actor as I was like, okay, um, so it's pretty one sided. And so he tried to pour his unrequited passion into composing music for the first time.

He wrote in his memoirs quote love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love. And he had only gotten a little instruction in music. He had learned guitar and flute from local teachers, but he never studied the piano, which was pretty common for composers to learn the piano and usually create their compositions on it or whatever. So he ends up devouring books on music theory and trying to figure out how he can put all his feelings on the page. So it's seventeen.

Actor moved to Paris and enrolled in medical school, even though he was completely disgusted at the idea of dissecting bodies. Yeah, I have to also one of the many reasons I did not go into medical school. But he did it anyway at his father's insistence. You know, he's telling his dad like but that he is simply cannot cut into this corpsu's flesh. Can't I just write the stirring opera about my feelings about cutting into the corpsus flesh? Maybe, all right, an opera on Luis section of of Pierre.

I was just gonna see Jean Pierre. Well, there's only two French names. But fortunately he had a major compensation because first he got a generous allowance to go to this medical school, and second he got to go to Peris. He immediately made use of the city's music library, and there are two opera houses, and he just went and saw a bunch of shows. And the more opera he saw, the more he became convinced that he was meant to

be a composer. He loved all the drama, He loved the staging and especially the use of the orchestra to move the story along in these operas. So he got private tutoring in composition on the side. And when he graduated medical school, he immediately said, nope, Flora, get this and he dropped the profession entirely. And his dad was like that suitcase son. You know what I understand. You don't like medicine, but you will make a great lawyers. Actors like no, no, no no, it's not what I'm doing

to play music. So he got really mad about this, obviously, and he started reducing or withholding hector's allowance sometimes for defying him. But actor was like, whatever, man, keep on trucking. I'm gonna do me, you know, classic story. Yeah. And so despite the financial hardship, he kept pursuing his dream to become a composer, and he entered the Pair Conservatoire as a student and made the first of his four attempts to win the Pleis de Rome, which was a

competitive prize for students of the arts. It provided a scholarship to study for three to five years at this prestigious arts school in Rome, Italy. Very nice, so pretty good prize, and he began contributing to music journalism as well for money. He didn't love it, but he was very very good at it, so he was doing that to pay the bills. And he would write scathing pieces about how Italian opera couldn't even begin to stand up next to the artistry of French opera. It was like

a whole opera. So he's trying to win the Puis d Rome and his strategy is, let me shoot all over Italian opera. It probably worked well because the school was still French. He was like, I'll go to Rome and talk ships all. Oh man, that's like when I did when I did my study abroad, Study abroad Alert. I was in Italy and we went to a vineyard there and the woman was like, you know, giving us

all these tastes of all these different wines. And I think she had a few herself, and she was like, the French wine so much a sugar that we don't have to put the sugar in our wine. And the French wine it's like, you know, I don't think she said this, but she's like it's like a ghoul aid, you know. So it's a lot of a lot of

artistic rivalry between France and Italy. Little bit a little bit. Yeah, although I have to say when we were in Italy and France for honeymoon honeymoon alert, um, I think we've kind of agreed a little bit because we drank wine in Italy for a couple of weeks and it was great, pretty easy, went down really easy, and like you woke up the next day and kind of felt fine. There was no wine hangover. And then we went to France and had some red wine there, and then we went

in the next day. We were like, ah, you know, yeah, both wonderful, beautiful, phenomenal places. Happy to drink wine in either place right now, Well, I'm gonna say I'll take the Italian wine. So yeah. Actor is talking about Italian opera basically, and he's like, French operas amazing, nothing can

can compare. And he also started going to see plays and concerts and he went and saw Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, and even though he didn't speak English, the play is still really stuck with him, and it began a lifelong passion for Shakespeare, but it was the company's Ophelia that really caught his eye. Oh Ophelia. She was an actress named Harriet Smithson and she was a twenty

seven year old woman from Ireland. Her parents were also actors runs in the family, but when she was still an infant, they left her in the care of a reverend who brought her up as his own daughter and try to shield her from everything about the stage, which is classic actor for them to be like, don't you dare do what I did, child, Let me protect you

from this nightmare. Go into religion instead. I'm so tired. However, so this reverend who was raising her died when she was only eight years old, so she got sent off to a boarding school and uh, you know, and this was totally the opposite of what her parents wanted, because I'm sure the boarding school just introduced her to theater

and she was like, this is it. When she was only fourteen, she made her stage debut in Ireland, and in search of fame and fortune, she made her way to London and she got fair reviews, not too bad, but she wasn't capturing any hearts. But then she went down to Paris in eighteen twenty seven and made her debut there, and her first Parisian play itself got negative reviews, but her performance got very positive ones. Then she got cast opposite Charles Kempbell in Hamlet. Charles Kembell was like

the actor for her. He was the Oscar Isaac of his time. UH. Parisian theater critics were totally floored by her interpretation. They wrote quote Ms. Smith soon acted the scene in which robbed the vicinity, she takes her own veil to be her father's body with utmost grace and truth, and her rave reviews won her the role of Juliet the next week in Romeo and Juliet, and she got even more praise after that. The King of France even

sent her a purse full of gold for her portrayal. Yeah, that's like, that's like Joe Biden being like, hey, um hey, Scar, Joe loved it. Here's fifty bucks. There's fifty corn pop. Yeah, hey, corn pops apparently going off the market. I know, not a bad not a bad get. Although they're going off the market because they have embalming fluid in them or something. I love corn pops, so I was like, wow, Wow, maybe that embalming fluid from the corn pops I've eaten

is well, I'm so well preserved. It's been keeping you going. Give us the corn pops back. I need the embolving fluid. Now. It's like the Holy Grail. It's like eternal youth. Yeah pop. Yeah. Apparently Harriet had this very naturalistic way of of portraying her characters that was a bit unusual at the time. I know, now we're very much about natural, realistic reactions and listening and stuff like that in the acting world.

But she was doing it, you know, I guess early on before many people were, and so yeah, people were really impressed by it. It was so subtle, so cool. But maybe no one admired her more than one man in the Hamlet audience, Dear Berlos He wrote in his memoirs quote, I come now to the supreme drama of my life in the role of Ophelia I Harriott Smiths. The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent Nate, her dramatic genius was equaled only by

the havoc Wrotten me by the poet. She's so nobly interpreted. That is all I can say. That only music can express. I mean he I mean, the guy's dramatic. Alright, that's all I'm saying. He's got hello, drama in his heart and mind and his very bones. And he began to pursue her relentlessly. One of his biographers, Hugh McDonald, even called his obsession with her quote emotional derangement. He sent

her flowers, he wrote her many letters. He even rented an apartment near hers for a brief time, just so he could watch her coming and going. But Harriet refused to meet him. She's like, She's like, I see Captain Red Flag has moved in next door. I will be using the back entrance from now on. How long has at least? And then she returned to London in not sure if that's related to moving in next door or not. I'll tell you it's not. It's it's interesting to see

that this was happening. This has probably been happening throughout history as long as they have been celebrities. There's been people stalking them. Yeah. Um, we had some a TV show I worked on for a brief while. Uh, mid level fame actor would get letters from the same person very frequently, and they were not scary Um. They were just clearly written someone who was a bit obsessed and uh, you know they shared a birthday with this actor, so

that's they they spent. They sent an especially long letter, um with just a lot of they just like wrote a lot of personal details about the actor's life. They just like showing that this is how much I know about you. Um and you know, very creepy. We we'd pass them around, you know, which is it's pretty fascinating to read. It wasn't mocking necessarily, um, but it was just like, Yeah, there's people out there who really put a lot of themselves into the people they're following. You know. Yeah,

let me talk about paris. Social relationships where you feel close to someone you've never met, um, just because maybe you listen to their podcast or watch all their movies or whatever it is. And it can I think I can get really conflated for some people that they really do know that person, or that that person will somehow know that they know them, you know what I mean,

don't you know? Quite honestly, like we have not gotten like some real stalkard letters yet and kind of waiting, guys, it's about to say, you know, find out everything about our personal lives and starts setting those pictures of ourselves. You know, I won't, but I was about to say, I think, but you know, at this time, that's definitely like stalkery behavior, and I don't know, if you know, a speculation station. Harriet probably was like, um, do I

need to be afraid of this guy or what? But at the same time, at the at the time, it was pretty flattering. It was like it was like a sign of success that people were so obsessed with you, and that they were willing to throw themselves, you know, on a puddle for you and something like that. Um, so she might have liked that a little bit too. It would have been a sign of like, I'm making

it ye want right now. Much like Ector's boyhood love for his neighbor is still his unrequited passion for Harriet was poured into his music and you started righting his most enduring and well known orchestral peace symphony Fantastique, And here you can hear a little bit of that now definitely recognizable. No know this song it was very autobiographical. Who's all about a man who falls deeply in love

with a woman who doesn't know he exists. Classical music dot Com writes, quote, in the opening movement, the young musician first sees the woman of his dreams. Her image haunts his imagination, presented as a musical theme or idea fixate. This is transformed in the following movements as he experiences a festive party, a stroll in the countryside, opium hallucinations, and a witches sabbath. So it kind of goes in a direction there like why is he gone opium? This

is a this is a great I'm interested. This opera starts with a festive party and a stroll in the countryside, devolves into an opium hallucination, and eventually there's witches in the movie. Um, they go on to say. Quote for Berlioz, it seems there was no real distinction between the real Smithson and one of Shakespeare's heroines. He often referred to her as Ophelia, Juliette, or Desdemona. A bit of a

pedestal yea. Also, um, at least two of those women died tragic So I can't remember what happened to Desdemona, but I think she makes it. Um. Yeah, yeah, man, that movie is so good. I would watch that again. The old Laurence Fishburne. Othello movie so good? Now did you ever see? Oh? Yeah, it was very good. Okay, Well, when oh came out, I was in the midst of my obsession with Othello. I think I had just recently seen the Kenneth Branna movie, so I was like, what

is this teenager trash bullshit? Like, you know, it's probably a pretty decent interpretation if you go back to but in eighteen thirty he arranged to have the if he performed to celebrate Harriet's arrival back in Paris. But you know what, she just never showed up. It's like, I know you've never heard of me before, but I arranged an entire orchestral piece for you and arranged to have it played at your arrival. Hello, why aren't you at

this party? The stranger is throwing in your honor? I'm like, okay, did he did he? Did he know she wasn't there before he started? And he was like all dispiritedly that seeing like who cares anymore? Or did he like really put himself into it, into an amazing job? And then like found out she wasn't there, and he keep what was this for? He keeps glancing over at the seat that has a reserve sign tape to it, and it's

here yet, like waiting for Guffman. Heartbreaking. Meanwhile, she's like, you know, she got a flyer two days ago for what is this? I don't have time for that, Like, never thought about it again, never, Yeah, do not cross. But while he was agonizing over this masterpiece, actor attracted the attention of a beautiful young woman named Camille Moke. Now, she was only eighteen years old, but she was already

one of the most brilliant pianists of her generation. And as he described her, she had quote a slim and graceful figure, magnificent black hair, and large blue eyes, and she was instantly interested in this brooding, romantic twenty seven year old composer. Oh God, what a site, right, I mean the height of the romantic period. Like, there's nothing like a guy with dark hair falling over his eyes,

like the memo times. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's like, you know, nine dude in a Starbucks right in his screenplay or poetry. Maybe he's so cute. Yeah, he's got like, you know, dark hair, gonna whispering over his eyes. I can fix him. She's like he's certainly devoted to the women he likes. He's he's a loyal guy. You can that now. At first, his obsession with Harriet kept Actor from noticing Camille, but it didn't take that long for

her flirtations to pay off. Again, she's pretty hot, so he was finally like, oh, she keeps leaning up on me. I guess Bulos wrote quote, I yielded and let myself find consolation for all my sorrows in a new passion. And within a couple of weeks they were lovers. Within a couple of months, they were engaged to be married. He moves fast. He turned to her and said, help me, help me, Randa, help me get her out of my heart. All that's a pretty good song. I should write this down.

I write this down. But Ector had another obstacle standing in the way of his new true love, her mother, whom he called or the hippopotamus. Wow that's dark now. Did he start by under that and then she didn't like him? Was it the other way around? He was like, yeah, I would not blame her. Maybe she was in a Twoto like infantation. Yeah, maybe she was the inspiration. Um. She did not approve of her daughter's passion for this broke gass musician, so she decided to make his life

annoying as hell. According to Robert Greenberg music dot COM's article Scandalous Overtures, Camille's mother quote put him through more hoops than a circus dog to make him prove himself worthy of her daughter. Now, they didn't say what the hoops were, so speculation station what did this lam make him do? Oh my god, I mean like literal hoops, yes I have. I'm picturing her being like, jumped through this hoop and he's like, no, that's humiliating. I'm a man,

not her dog. And she's like, well, do you love my daughter or what. He's like, fine, I'll jump through the hoop. And then he jumped through the hoop and Camille was like, yeay, I love you, and Mom's like again and he's like okay. And then as soon as he's about to jump, she sets the hoop on fire. Oh my god, flaming hoops. Literally. She was just like, you need to make money. So she was like, go,

I don't know, do some LNG cares. I don't know. Well, whatever she did, she made a miserable yeah, but fortunately During this time, Hector competed for his fourth time for the Prix de Rome, and this time he won. All that shipping on Italian opera finally paid off, and he took himself off to Italy to write a French opera in Italy worthy of the love of Canelle. Mok. And with that, we will take a brief commercial break, and we'll be right back with their lovely story. All right, everyone,

welcome back to the symphony. Now. Was only three weeks into this program at the Academy that he had competed for several times when he received a letter from Camille's mother saying that Camille was breaking off their engagement. If he's in Rome and there in Paris, probably takes a week or so to get a letter there. So he goes to the academy and she immediately starts like, okay, this is where I get rid of him. She's plotting,

plotting against him this whole time. Well, Camille had received an offer from a super rich guy thirty years older than herself. His name is also Camille. The guy's name was Camille Playel. He was a piano maker and a virtuoso pianist himself, and he actually provided pianos for Frederic Chopin of all people, and he was also heir to the Playel piano making fortune. So this guy really had

his life together. Probably he was thirty years older. That definitely Hector had a little more time can get his life right. And Madame Mouke told Hector backup off Camille forever. Let's not make a big deal about this, Okay, I mean, come on, they're they're both named Camille. Like, that's kind of awkward calling out your lover's name in bed right to just be saying, call me by your name. I guess he could really do that. Where's the coming about

your name? About Camille and Camille? Call right? We're their friends always, Like, oh, the Camilles are here. But Camille's mother should have known by now that making a big deal out of things was kind of Hector's whole thing. Yeah, it's like his kind of m O in general. I don't think he knew how to not make a big deal a lot of things. Yeah, he had big feelings about this whole thing, and possibly the biggest of those feelings was anger. So he decided what he was going

to do was leave Rome in a huff. Presumably go back to Paris and kill Camille's mother, Camille, the other Camille, and then himself in this spectacular triple homicide suicide. So he stole two double barrel pistols as well as some Stryck nine. I guess in case he missed, then poison him. I'm like, I guess he's Oh, if I shot you in the leg, you would have fallen over, and then I'll just walk over. Who knows what he was thinking here.

He also got himself a French maid's costume, which he intended to wear as a disguise in order to sneak into the Moke house. All right, actor, you were not thinking this through, right. I mean, this is a woman who has known you pretty well and he slept with you. I think you just put on unless you have a missis doubt fire makeup situation happening. How do you think you're just gonna walk right by her and and she's not gonna be like ecto? Is that you and a

French maid's costume? He goes and finds Harvey fire scene is like Nick me the most beautiful French maid you've ever seen? And he's like all right. He was like I can't do that. I can't do that, Actor skill, I would you like to be an old British maid? I can make you an ugly wol frenchwoman. Does that work? So, on route to France to carry out his amazing plan, Actor apparently lost the French maid's costume somewhere. Somehow he had to have another one made in Genoa. Where did

you lose it? What happened to it? Did he put it on? Like, try it on and it ripped? Well? What does he tell that? Because you can't go to a party city and get a French maid's costume. So goes the tailor and he's like, I need an outfit for my for my maid. She's like, okay, well is she here? Can I measure her? What are her dimensions? She's like, you know, just use me. She's about my size.

Maybe in Genoa they were like, you know what, I don't ask questions you want Yeah, you're the ninth guy to come in here and ask for a French maid's costume and his size this week, no further question. So while actor was in Genoa, he fell off the city ramparts into the Mediterranean theme. Maybe that's how he lost the French Baids costume. Maybe I thought it was was waiting for it to be made, but maybe that is. You know, I'm going to put this on and then

balance beam across the ramparts of the river. See what I can do. One source said he was trying to drown himself. Others said he just fell off, like walking on the ramparts like you do. He was fished out by some locals, and after spending an hour violently vomiting up seawater, he decided not to go through with his plot. It turns out dying is terrible, and I want to do it again. That sucked. Other sources say that he did nearly drown in Genoa, but that he didn't change

his mind about his plot until he was in Niece, France. Anyway, at some point in his journey, his rage died down, and he thought about the two sisters he had, with whom he was very close, and all the music that he wanted to write that would be left unwritten. He went through with killing himself, hopefully. Also thought about, like Camillo, all the things she could do. But it doesn't say that really really self centered on this one, he wrote in his memoirs quote love of life and art, whispered

a thousand sweet promises to me. I let them speak, and even found a certain pleasure in listening. So he stayed in Nice for a little while, writing music, walking through orange groves and swimming in the ocean, later calling them quote the twenty happiest days of my life. So if you're going through a breakup, right now, take yourself to me, Dorothee, and take a big right. That sounds great.

Then he took himself back to Rome and successfully appealed to be let back into this composition program that he had left in order to go murder suicide. A bunch of people. You know, I'm sorry I left school. I had the craziest idea and it didn't pan out, and they were like, you know, that would make a great opera, right, get back in here, And you know, I don't know. Maybe he dodged a bullet with Camille, because only four years later after marrying her, her husband Camille Playel separated

from her permanently, citing scandalous conduct and multiple infidelities. Although I have to wonder if that's not just case. He was thirty years older than her and like basically an arranged marriage. Yeah, She's like, I'm not not that into you. Yeah. But one of her lovers was the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz List, which apparently strained lists relationship hip with Chopin because they used Chopin's room for one of their little rendezvous and it really pissed him off. Did you

at least change the sheets? List wrote about her quote, she has magnificent talent. She asked me whether I remembered Chopin's room. It certainly, madame, How could I forget? Etcetera, etcetera. It's that etcetera at the end, because it makes it sound like he was like, yes, of course, madam, how could I forget? It's such an amazing night with you, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Oh I thought maybe he was like, because he says she's a magnificent talent, maybe he's like, oh, yeah, how

could I forget Chopin's room, etcetera. Like and also the kitchen and the living room and the basement and the attic and on top of Chopin's piano that your husband made. Wow. What's funny too, is that Franz Least was a really big fan of actor's. Actually he loved the symphony fantastic and like we said, Actor had never learned the piano um so Franz Least actually rewrote the entire symphony for piano so that more people could hear it, because I

thought it was so cool. So thanks to Hector was alone again and so he dedicated himself to composition again. He hated Italian music and culture. He's like funk all this, but the scenery was very inspiring. He thought it was beautiful countryside, gorgeous sunsets. I mean, which is so true. It is beautiful. It is if I can go back to my study abroad and now I won't one an episode.

Uh yeah, And all that scenery and beauty really influenced his work while he was there, but he left the program a little early and went back to France in eighteen thirty two, and there he arranged a concert of his work, including the Symphony Fantastique and its sequel Lelio, and through a third party, he sent an invitation to the symphony's muse Harriet Smithson, Oh, his original obsession, right, and she also inspired the sequel Lelio, So he's still

on Harriet even after Camille, he's still up on Harriet in his mind. Now this time, Harriet accepted the invite, maybe because it was from a third party and she was like, oh, you want me to go great? Or she like completely forgotten about this guy, like he's thinking of her every day, and she's like, I never heard

of him. Sure, I'll go see what this is all about. Sure, But anyway, she accepted, and she was dazzled by all the celebrities and attended, which included friends least Frederick Chopin, Pagan Nanny, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Duma. We're list In Chopin like sitting across the aisle from each other, just staring Daggers, I can't believe what you did to my piano. Oh you have no idea? What I did? You know? So why? And while she's in the audience, Harriet finally

realizes that this symphony is about her. She didn't not know that this whole time, so she's pretty flattered, and she sent a message to Hector to congratulate him on his successful concert. They ended up finally meeting in person, and it wasn't long before they became lovers, and in eighteen thirty three, she agreed to marry him, despite her family's strident opposition. Now, the past couple of years actually

had not been too kind to Harriet. She had gotten rave reviews in Paris, which emboldened her to return to the London stage. But the reviewers in London, of course, they had panned her acting before she ever went to Paris, so they weren't eager to look like that. They didn't know what they were talking about originally, right. They didn't want eat Crowe to be like, well, actually, I guess she's very good. So they were kind of lukewarm about her effage. They were like, shiss, I guess she learned

something in Paris. She's okay. I didn't want to stab myself in the eye like the last time I saw her. You know, I wonder if part of it is like I don't want people think Paris knows more about going. Sure, we do in London. But still she did all right for a while until she set up her own theater in eighteen thirty, which is the worst decision you can make to start your own theater. Kids out there today. She put up and performed in several plays, but they

were unsuccessful. And in March of eighteen thirty three, she was deeply in debt, which was a serious problem because her mother and her sister relied on her financially. Some biographies say that these financial constraints are the main reason that she was willing to accept her old stalker Hector. Yeah, instead of like, oh, I didn't know, oh it's about me. Oh well, I guess you're actually kind of, you know, famous for some like hut progression. But they were like, actually,

she just was like, I'm broke. I need somebody to take care of This guy seems to be doing all right and he's into me, so I'll take it, right. But he also was not making that much money, so I thunder about that he wasn't He was famous and you know, successful, but he wasn't actually gathering. Maybe that's perfect because she's like, he's not so so wealthy and

successful that he's unattainable. He's got all these women after him, but I'm just like betting on his future, like if he's on the rise, so this would be a smart time to get in, okay, okay. A speculative and apparently they had a pretty happy marriage at first. In four they had a son Louis, but things went downhill after that. Harriet performed for the final time in eighteen thirty six. She had no roles, nothing going on with her career,

and actor meanwhile, wasn't making that much money. But his fame was growing as a music critic and a conductor as well as a composer, and his main desire as a composer was to write an opera, because that was how you really made your mark in the world of music in Paris. Apparently, at that time, music on its own was just not very meaningful. It didn't seem like a very high art. They were like, you need to throw in some storytelling, some costumes. I need some more

stuff going on. So he worked for a few years on his opera ben Venuto, Cellini and Burly Oz. Scholar D. Kern Holloman says that he agrees with Hector that it has quote exceptional exuberance and verve, but the performances weren't great. Apparently they had weak singers and bad staging, both of which are kind of the whole point of operation. Without good staging and good singing, you don't have a good opera, just a concert. They were like everyone's dressed great though.

So yeah, the opera was poorly received. It was quickly canceled, and Hector foresaw that he would never get another chance to take it in the world of opera, and he was right. The doors of the Paris Opera were never opened for him again. Wow, Petty one one one bad opera. They never let you come back. Yeah, not like Hollywood today, where you can just fail up. Let's be honest, there's so many failures up in Hollywood. But not long after that disaster, he conducted a concert of his own work

that went great. Paganini was in the audience, and after the show, he came up on stage, knelt down before Hector in homage and kissed his hands. How, I mean, how cool is that? Right? Tagging Ninny? I mean, everybody already knew he was the best. And only a few days later Hector was shocked to receive a check from Paganini for francs that is worth just checking. We have one conversion calculator here that says it is over a

hundred and seventy thousand euros today. Wow. Just oh, here's a little you know what, what's that an American dollar's gonna be over two hundred thousand dollars. Here's it. Here's a check, just because I liked your thing that you did. He's like, you need money, sir, right, and I'm like, yes, me too, somebody right me, Hey, if anybody likes this show enough to write us two check, we will take it,

we will cash it, and thank you gratefully. So this enabled Actor to pay off his and Harriet's debts and even allowed him to take a break from music criticism and concentrate just on composing. So he did some successful work, but around eighteen forty he was struggling financially again and started writing a series of articles that became his Treatise on Orchestration, published in eighteen forty three. And this and the Symphony Fantastic seemed to be his most enduring achievements.

Sometime in eighteen forty he met the mezzo soprano Marie Rescio, who was a professional singer with the Paris Opera. And we'll find out more about that relationship right after this and welcome back to the shower one. So, remember how Actor and Harriet's marriage was going downhill. That's because Harriet got really jealous of Actor's success. Just as her career

was failing, she started drinking heavily. That caused increasingly bad health problems for her, and then she started getting real suspicious about this Marie woman that actor was spending so much time with, and that only increased her bitter resentment, her drinking, and her ill health. I gotta wonder if one time she opened his closet and was like, what's this French maid's costume doing it here? He was like, just a souvenir of an old guy. I'm not cheating

on you with a maid. That's just from what I was going to murder, suicide a bunch of people. Oh what a really, But Harriet's instincts were spot on. By eight forty one, Marie was Hector's mistress, and he even helped her get a steady job singing at the Opera Comique, but that only lasted a few months because she had a limited range and apparently also terrible stage fright that robbed her of any singing skills that she had while she was on stage. Weird career to go into. Yeah, absolutely,

what are you doing? I really hate heights more than anything else in the world, But I just want to be a crane construction operator, you know, come on. She accompanied Hector on his German concert tour and sang several solos, and he even composed a song called Les d'ta for

her in Three the Nights of Summer. The BiblioTech National in France calls Marie a possessive shrew who demanded to be given solos, even though Hector wrote, quote shemus leg two dozen cats actors like, you don't sound like good. Let me try. I guess I'll write something not complicated. She's de ended in other ways. I have other gifts. So it also says in BiblioTech National that he tried to flee from Marie in Frankfurt during their tour, but then she caught up with him in Weimar. He was like,

damn it, Oh did I forget you. I'm so glad you caught up. Well, here we are again. Marie would even try to provoke and humiliate Harriet, So maybe that's why in eight forty three Actor set up a separate household from Harriet with Marie, even though he continued to financially support Harriet. Makes sense, He's like, let me get my mistress out of the same house. As my wife.

That seems clean, cleaner now. Despite her overbearing personality, or maybe because of it, Marie would remain with Hector for twenty years. BiblioTech National says, even so, he barely mentions her in his memoirs, the quote too great loves which have exerted such a powerful and long lasting influence that he writes about r Stell his first love, and Harriet his muse. Wow, the eighteen year old from his childhood and then and then the woman he stalked, which makes sense.

I mean, it's still is the reason he decided to become a composer, because he had feelings he couldn't express other ways. So I can see him being like, I'm still thinking about hers. You know, there's still some love in my heart. I guess I still think of the eighteen year old when I was twelve. Sometimes Jillian, Jillian, Jillian. He's married now, I'm just kidding. Stay away, Jillian, get out of here. Even though they were estranged, Hector still

loved Harriet. In eighty eight, Harriet suffered a series of strokes that left her mostly paralyzed and needing constant nursing and actor pay for everything, and when he was in Paris. He visited her all the time, sometimes twice a day. So again, he's loyal the guy. Once he decides he loves you, that's it. You're in his heart forever. So Berrioz was critiquing and conducting music with maybe not a lot of financial success, but at least he had a

lot of respect. But critics wrote scathing stuff about his operas, his symphonies, and his songs, including this gem quote. His strange composition consisting of nothing but noise, disorder, a sickly and sterile exaltation bare Leo's musically speaking, is a lunatic, a classical composer only in Paris, the great city of quacks. Damn. His music is simple and undisguised, nonsense hard, that's way harsh. Tie.

This quote was printed in Interlude dot HK, a website that's dedicated to Cli School musical history and theory, but it's not attributed to anyone in particular, so we're not sure of their source here. But in eighteen fifty actor decided to play a little trick on his musical critics, so he wrote a choral piece about the shepherds saying goodbye to the baby Jesus as the Holy Family left Bethlehem for Egypt, and he called it La fance ducrist.

In November eighteen fifty he set up a concert to perform l'enfance, which you're hearing some of now, and he told the press that during the restoration at the Parisian Church San Chappelle, they had discovered this piece of music written on ancient parchment behind the wall, and Hector had discovered that it was written by Pierre Ducray, a brilliant

but forgotten music master of San Chapelle in sixteen seventy nine. Now, Actor had had a lot of trouble translating it because it was written in an archaic notation, but he knew the world had to hear it. The press a this ship up like peanut butter pretzels baby. They praised Burlios for uncovering this valuable masterpiece. They fell over themselves admiring

the beauty of the orchestration. One particularly caustic critic of Hector's wrote quote, Burlos would never be able to write a tune as simple and as charming as this little piece by old Ducray. There's that must have been the most satisfying thing you ever read. Oh my god, he was laughing so hard when he read that. He's got a bit interlude, writes quote, as you might well imagine, Burlios was greatly amused by the wave of admiration for

the fictitious ducree. He quickly confessed his subterfuge, but the Ruse assured that the oratorio received unanimous approval from the music critics far and wide, love that he was like surprised I wrote this one and there and that and far and wide. They're like, good one, good one, you got us. I mean they could now suddenly be like, oh well, now it's a piece of ship. Yeah right right. You know now that I listened to it again, it's

not very good. Lunatic made it. That's awesome. In March of eighteen fifty four, Harriet Smithson Barlos died, and in October of that same year actor married Marie Rescio. He explained to his son Louis that he quote had to duration had become you will understand indissoluble. I could neither live alone nor abandon the person who had lived with me for fourteen years. He's like, sorry, kid, I mean she's been around for a long time, it would be

rude not to for real. So he wrote a five act opera and continued his music critique and conducting, and he was doing really well in Prague, Germany and Russia particularly, and he was writing prose with Maria's collapse raider and manager until eighteen sixty two. She died of heart disease, but Actor wasn't left alone. Marie's mother was devoted to him, so she lived with him and took care of him until the end of his life. I imagine with Marie being,

you know, like eleven years younger than him. Uh, mom wasn't too much older than him. Oh, maybe not. I didn't think about that. Maybe they were closer in age. I was just like I guess he wasn't universally unpopular with mothers in law. Maybe he didn't call her hippopotamus. Yeah, that probably helped. But it wasn't long before another woman distracted him from his grief, a woman almost half his age, twenty six year old Emily. Well that's you know, That's

what I love about Actor. He keeps getting older and his wife say the same age shove by real the DiCaprio of his time. Yeah, it altho let's for DiCaprio. I was pushing it. I know, DiCaprio's like, what am I? What am I dating retirees? Now, Emily's last name is unknown. She was possibly married, and they may be met in the Montmarked cemetery, but that's about all that's known because they were only together for a little less than a year, so not a lot of information about her. Yeah, it's

a little rebound. Now. Not long after they split up, Emily died, but Hector didn't know anything about it until six months later he was walking in a cemetery and stumbled upon her grave. Now, the research says by this point he was financially comfortable, he had sold the publishing rights for his five act opera Letroyen, but he was really depressed because both his wives and both his sisters, who again he had been very close to his wife, had all died. Um, you know, he's getting older, so

his contemporary start to die as well. He's just got a little morbidly obsessed with death. So you got to wonder what this little interlude and the cemetery he did for his mental health. For a minute, he should be so weird to just basically just a few months ago broken up with this woman and then find out she died. Yeah, I'm sure it was just a mindful find out by Yeah, it's not even like you heard about it, but just like, oh my god, I'm here with your you know you're grave.

That's creepy what happened, you know? And he has no right to ask, no right to know, you know what I mean, it just must have been a weird It's a very weird thing to come. So who could Hector turn to at this late stage in his life, where, you know, all of his loves had been dying, um, and he was starting to feel pretty pretty worried about it himself. Well, of course, he just went back to his very first love. Still. She was now a sixty seven year old widow, and when he asked if he

could visit her, she welcomed him warmly. So heads up, Jillian, I'll call you one day. One day when he's sixty seven. The age gap means a lot less when you're right seven, and he's like whatever. Now. It's not clear if these two had a physical relationship, but he visited her for three summers, and he wrote to her nearly every month for the rest of his life. In eighteen sixty seven, he learned that his own son, Louis, who had been a naval captain, died of yellow fever in Havana, so

he tried to distract himself with work. He did a series of concerts in Russia and the tour was a huge success, both critically and financially, but it really sapped what was left of his strength, and when he got home to France visibly unwell, he passed away in eighteen sixty nine. He was buried in montmart Cemetery with both of his wives by his side, and one presumes right around the corner from Amalie. Maybe so I wondered that too. Chose it because it was like a way to honor

that connection as well. Yeah, if it's just where their plot was available, I don't know, bury me with all my bunnies except Camille except oh wow. So yeah, that's the that's the crazy love life of Ector Burlio all over the place. Yeah, I don't know. Would it feels sorry for this guy or to think he's a lunatic? I mean, I guess that was kind of his whole thing, his whole life. Of people are like I don't know whether to love you or hate you or what's going on? Crazy?

Are you okay? I don't know. It's like trying to murder suicide at one point. But then he's like a really good husband. Even after he cheats on you and runs off with a mistress, he's still real devoted, super strange. I mean, but like they weren't very happy together right that point, so it's almost like the only way he could show is like she clearly didn't want him around. Yeah, I guess that's, you know, just to try and relate

to that about that success thing. Um, going back to Harriet and talking about that, Um, you know how that relationship started to tterior rate if she was seeing all his success and uh and she her career was was floundering. I got that. Um. I started to think about that when we haven't been auditioning lately. We are, we're with actors, but we have not been auditioning the last couple of years. But what we we kind of shortly after our honeymoon, we sort of doubled down on it, and we're getting

ready to audition more. And we started to go out there a little bit, and I was getting some like decent feedback, but not many parts, a couple of student films and things, and Diana goes out and like immediately everything she auditions for that she's cast, Like it was

happening way faster and more successfully for you. And I was like, would I would I get mad if like she ends up being a really successful actress and I'm you know, doing whatever, hanging out and I mean, like, no, that sounds fucking great, Like I would totally be a house husband. If you were making a bank that sounds awesome to me. But if you were doing it in what I always wanted to do with my life, I would definitely feel a little like, damn, wow, it's so

easy for her. I know. I think that was all the same. And we talked about that with a couple of acting teachers we had that are married, and uh, I was like, do you get jealous when like why do you book something and the other one has it worked in a while? Like what's that? Like? Is it hard at home? And um, at least the wife kat diers name, she's a very good actress, awesome stranger things. He's Jason McDonald, he's on TV. They run Drama Inc. In Atlanta, a great place anyway, she was like, no,

it's all a win. We have to consider ourselves a unit. Each win that we each have is a win for both of us. And I was like, that's so healthy. I hope I can one day get my brain right. And they have. They have so many wins between them all the time. I mean, they're steady working. Welcome to Flatch. Jas McDonald's new show that he's on, So check that out on Hulu, and then I think prime it's The Devil to Pay, which also has another local actress named Daniel dead Eiler in it, and she is amazing, so

good watch stuff. Anyway, that's our plug. Look, just listen to us on everything we recommend and that's all you need to do. Yeah, let us run your life for you, and then go check out actor Berlioz's music while you're at it. Support him. He's a great musician, local, too local to earth, and he's got some cool stuff. He really does. Yeah. I listened to him a lot while I was researching this, of course, um, and I really enjoyed having him on in the background. It is very dramatic,

intensely dramatic stuff. You were saying that people have said of his music that it was kind of like movie scores. Yeah there were movies. Yeah, I totally get that because I love movie scores to the point where I can't this is uh, this is annoying about me. I'm so

anti spoiler that I remember. I remember when the Matrix two was about to come out and my friend We're driving around in his Toyota Corolla or whatever, and he had like, you know, the six discs eat each ranger, and he was like, I got the Matrix two soundtrack and the movie wasn't going to come out for like another week. We already had our tickets, and I was like, don't play it. He's like, what are you talking about.

I was like, I don't want to hear it. And then I'm hearing it again during the movie and I'm like, oh, something crazy's about to happen because I know the music is about to change. That's just how my brain works. It's terrible, but I love movie scores after I see the movie, or if I'm never going to see the movie. It's such a cool, like, uh, discipline a movie score. Yeah, you know, you really have to get the mood right.

A bad score will suck up a good movie, right, And you can't just let I mean, I've never composed a movie score, but my my assumption is you can't really let the music guide you because you're beholden to the cut of the scene as well. Right Like, if I think the music is supposed to do a certain thing here, but then you know Spider Man jumps off

the building. Oh now it's got to do something different, different, which might be why people thought his compositions were so weird and erratic and stuff, that he was serving whatever story had going on in his mind that they didn't see, you know what I mean, And especially because they were mostly concerts. Again, there's not a lot of staging without the opera, So if you're just listening to the music,

you know, he's clearly got some real storytelling going on. Again, he's got he's doing Opium and go into a witches Sabbath and all this stuff. So he's like, I think he's seeing colorful pictures and the time that he's trying to express to you through music. And at the time, people were much more used to you serve the music. The melody goes this way, you you you uh, let that movement play out until you know the appropriate time to change it or something, and he didn't like really

play by those rules. Yeah, I wonder. It makes me wonder there's probably like, um, I don't know psychologists and anthropologists who have who have answered this, but I wonder if back in the day, as your thinking of music and you're imagining the scenes, if he's sees it in his mind like a movie, like he's there like we do,

because I imagine everything like a movie. I know different people have different minds I and how they perceive stuff, or if he envisions it as if he's sitting in an audience looking at a stage, you know, like when he's seeing this this which is Sabbath or whatever is he's seeing it like we would like a third person camera, as if he's really there looking through his own eyes and cutting between shots, or if he's imagining it like I'm looking at a at a stage and two dimensions

more or less he was playing at horizontally in front of me in one long take. I wonder how that worked. I feel like assume the second because that's what he was used to seeing, and opera and everything done like that. I wonder if you can think and cuts before you've seen a cut but I guess you can because somebody thought of it, right, I mean, cuts come from a translation of our imagination, right maybe, So I don't know. I do think that's so interesting that some people see

pictures and some people see words. Oh my god, are like And when you think, do you think in words like complete sentences or is it more like vague like again pictures, I guess, or just colored emotions or something like. I think that's so interesting that we don't even think the same way as each other. I think in vivid visual detail, and my Inner Voice is a constantly running podcast of like active conversation. And I don't think that's

necessarily better or worse than than any alternatives. But I know some people, like friends of ours, who talked about like, I don't see pictures in my head, um. Some people say they see like literal words like typed words, um, and some people so yeah, you know, I don't. I just have the concepts and ideas without the actual you know,

image itself. And I think that's it's fascinating. I bet there's some benefits to either one in terms of how you can, um, you know, getting the image in my mind out of it and onto paper or onto a camera or whatever is hardest thing because it's so detailed that it's frustrating sometimes. And I wonder if, like, if you just thought in concepts, it might be easier to pick up a camera and kind of get the general idea of what you're thinking of without being so trapped

by the details. Yeah, I wondered if because I think in words definitely and not many pictures. Yeah, I know I hear them a lot. I know you do. And I was about to say, I think it makes me like I do have to talk to myself a lot. I have to talk through I'm like, okay, well, what would be the best way to do this because this is at the other way is blah blah blah. And it's like think saying it out loud helps me organize it in a better way than just listening to myself

in my head. Um. But I wonder if you think more in pictures, you don't need to do that, you know what I mean? I need a pensive to like pull right, But all I want is a is a dream projector you know, we're just like plugs into your head and then whatever thoughts you're imagining are just boom projected out of the wall. The things I would show you all you have your minds blown? Oh my god, straight to horror listen. I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, I would hate it for people to see you it's

this tide. Well, I definitely would want to censor button some of the really dumb questions I've asked, or horrible things I've thought, like, nobody needs to know about that, We'll just keep that to ourselves. Well all that bit of a tangent, but um, but that's where these stories take us to new and exciting places. Just like actor BerliOS, you never know what's going to come next in this In this song we're composing called Ridiculous Romance this opera created.

But yeah, I really enjoyed learning about actor BerliOS. I had never heard of him before. I was a little bit familiar with Symphony Fantastic. When I heard that, I was like, oh no, I definitely this has happened in the background of my life at some point. Yeah. In fact, by the way to hear more, Symphony FANTASTICQ is in the Shining soundtrack. It was recently in Righteou Gemstones, and apparently it's also in Star Trek first contact I saw,

but I couldn't tell you the score from it. But yeah, so it's it's in a lot of stuff, so you've you've probably heard it. Yeah, so check him out. I really think his music was worth listening to and just think about whatever movie comes to your mind. Imagine Harriet, how dare you be successfully even though that's the only reason I married you in the first place. For Harriet. So thanks again to Mahi mans Half for this idea

to get into the world of composers. These romantic composers all screwing each other, and it's funny to think of them as like the rock stars of their day, and it seems like they kind of were, you know, smashing hotel rooms and doing it on top of the piano and list was like the axl Rows of his time. Awesome. Well, please let us know what you thought of this episod. Let us know how you perceive your imagination in your mind. I would I love that conversation, So tell us if

you if you've got something interesting about it. We would love to hear from you. Would love to read some of your words out on the show, So shoot us an email. You can reach us at ridic Romance at gmail dot com right or slide into the d m s on social media. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Dynamite Boom, and I'm at O Great. It's Eli and the show is at predict Romances. Reach out. Don't forget to drop us a review on Apple Podcasts. Throw us a rating on Spotify. If you're on there, you can

do a little five star ratings. Super fun stuff helps us out and we love hearing from you, so uh. Enjoy yourselves and we will catch you next week on the next episode. Cannot wait? Take care? How ye? So long friends, It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends name's uncle's indes to listen to our show. Ridiculous Well n