Which composer is known for his 'Symphonie fantastique'?

Hector Berlioz composed Symphonie fantastique. Written in 1830, this programmatic symphony follows a lovesick artist through opium-fuelled visions, from a ball and countryside scene to a march toward the scaffold and a witches’ sabbath.

The work was inspired partly by Berlioz’s intense fascination with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, whom he saw as Ophelia in Hamlet in 1827. Smithson did not attend the 1830 premiere, but she heard a revised performance in 1832; the pair met soon afterward and married the following year.

Berlioz gave the symphony five movements rather than the conventional four. A recurring melody called the idée fixe represents the artist’s beloved, returning in altered forms throughout the work. This use of a continuing thematic identity became one of the symphony’s most distinctive innovations.

The premiere took place at the Paris Conservatoire on December 5, 1830. The title is sometimes shortened in conversation, but the full French title means “Fantastic Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist.” Franz Liszt later made a piano transcription, but Berlioz—not Liszt—was the composer.