Musings on the piece of writing I found this morning…

Berlioz was a famous composer in…I wanna say the romantic period. Anyway, he was this struggling composer who ended up falling head over heels in love with an English actress. He wrote her love letter after love letter, but they all went unanswered. It seemed she knew nothing of his existance.

So, Berlioz writes a symphony for this woman, entitled “Symphonie Fantastique.” It works on themes of lost love and includes an opium trip, a hanging, and a trip to hell where the main character discovers that the woman he loves is a witch. It is a wonderful piece of music, truly emotive and powerful.

Anyway, two years after it premiers, it gets back to the actress that Berlioz wrote this for her. And she’s so impressed she finally agrees to meet with him. And they fall in love and get married.

Nine years later, he divorced her.

This raises interesting questions:

1) Was Berlioz really in love? Was he just obsessed? Or was he just in love with the idea of being in love?

2) Why is it that back in those days, someone could write a symphony for a celebrity they’ve never even met and have it be praised, where as today something like that would be laughed at or considered stalking?

3) Isn’t it just terrible when you find a piece of writing you had forgotten about, re-read it, love it, and then realize you can never let anyone else in the world read it because it will be laughed at?