To fall in love with oneself, Oscar Wilde tells us, is the beginning of a lifelong love affair. Like many of his witty observations, this one, too, is partly profound and partly untrue. But it does apply to a certain degree to Hector Berlioz. It applies to him, moreover, without any of the invidious implications—of egotism, of narcissism, and the rest—that usually attached to Wilde’s bon mot. He was single-minded from his youth on, and he knew it. In a characteristic account of a concert of his own works that he offered at Weimar in 1843, he notes in his Mémoires that his compositions were exceedingly well received, “like an acquaintance,” he wrote, “one is glad to see again.” And he quickly adds: “Well, here I am again, verging on lack of modesty.” But why be modest when one has no need to be modest, he asked himself more than once. “Why should I not lack modesty?” he wondered, a little defiantly (327). In what follows, this is what I want to concentrate on—not much what others knew, and for that matter know, about him, but what he knew about himself. Berlioz’s Berlioz.

We have ample material allowing us to visit Berlioz’s mind. More, in fact, than would be available for most other composers. We have the usual suspects: letters, diaries, reviews, reminiscences of friends and acquaintances. Furthermore, let me just mention that the quality of what I have called the usual suspects is, with Berlioz, unusually high. We need relatively few inferences, for Berlioz is always there. Not that he was superficial as a human being, let alone as a composer. But he allowed much of his inner life to rise to the surface. And I should not forget the most rewarding of all sources: Berlioz’s wonderful Mémoires, a perpetual pleasure no matter how often one opens the book, and always ready to offer new surprises.

How much he has given of himself to the world emerges with particular clarity when we compare the testimonies Berlioz left for posterity with those of most other composers.