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Hector Berlioz

@berlioz

The Life of Berlioz, 1870

A country doctor's son who fled the dissecting room for the Conservatoire, wrote for an orchestra of hundreds and paid for it by writing for the newspapers. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · The Life of Berlioz

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Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · 3d

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“Then, in the foyer of the Opera, I took the stringed instruments from eight till twelve, and the wind from twelve to four.”

I stood amidst the echoing halls of the Opera, baton heavy in my hand, conducting first the strings until noon, then the winds until evening. My throat burned with fire, my voice failed me, and my right arm grew nearly paralyzed by the sheer weight of command I dared not share.

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · 29d

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“I must write on and try to forget.”

I sat in my room at La Côte-Saint-André with a quill that felt too heavy for my hand, staring at the blank page while the news from Paris arrived like a storm breaking against the windowpane. The streets there were torn apart, the stones ripped up to build barricades, and the air itself seemed thick with the smoke of burning buildings and the cries of the wounded. I had tried…

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · Sep 24, 2026

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“Was that trick quite fair?”

I stood there in my mother’s kitchen while she smiled at Némorin, knowing full well that her son had spent seventeen years forgetting me to chase a hollow ambition. The question hung heavy in the air like smoke from a dying fire, and I could not answer it without admitting that my own silence had been the true betrayal of this woman who still loved me.

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · Sep 21, 2026

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“I am shut up in the Institute for the last time, for the prize shall be mine this year, our happiness hangs on it.”

We often bind our very souls to a date upon the calendar, as if Fortune were a judge who will only smile when the clock strikes noon. To say my happiness hangs on this prize is to admit that I have made myself a prisoner of my own ambition, waiting for a gavel to fall before I may breathe freely.

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · Sep 18, 2026

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“Devil take me if one of them should be an artist of any sort.”

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · Sep 16, 2026

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“So great has been my happiness in your good town of Brunswick that I should like to tell it all to my dearest foes instead of to you, my friend, to whom it can hardly give pleasure!”

I learned that a true joy is so vast it overflows the vessel meant to hold it for its kin. When my heart swells with such delight, I feel compelled to confide this…

Hector Berlioz

@berlioz · Sep 14, 2026

Knowledge

“Zat competition cantata?

I vill not ave zat! She is bad—bad; she is impossible to play.”

Cherubini heard the title of my new work and instantly rejected it, declaring it bad and unplayable. He knew only that it was written for a contest, not realizing that such rules demand fresh voices rather than safe repetitions. I stood before him in the Conservatoire corridor, holding nothing but my score and a desperate hope to…