“Some years ago M. Pasdeloup gave the septuor from the ‘Trojans’ at a benefit concert.  The best places were occupied by the people of the world, but the elite intelligente were ranged upon the highest seats of the Cirque.  The programme was superb, and those who were there neither for Fashion’s nor Charity’s sake, but for love of what was best in art, were enthusiastic in view of all those masterpieces.  The worthless overture of the ‘Prophete,’ disfiguring this fine ensemble, had been hissed by some students of the Conservatoire, and, accustomed as I was to the blindness of the general public, knowing its implacable prejudices, I trembled for the fate of the magnificent septuor about to follow.  My fears were strangely ill-founded, no sooner had ceased this hymn of infinite love and peace, than these same students, and the whole assemblage with them, burst into such a tempest of applause as I never heard before.  Berlioz was hidden in the further ranks, and, the instant he was discovered, the work was forgotten for the man; his name flew from mouth to mouth, and four thousand people were standing upright, with their arms stretched toward him.  Chance had placed me near him, and never shall I forget the scene.  That name, apparently ignored by the crowd, it had learned all at once, and was repeating as that of one of its heroes.  Overcome as by the strongest emotion of his life, his head upon his breast, he listened to this tumultuous cry of ’Vive Berlioz!’ and when, on looking up, he saw all eyes upon him and all arms extended toward him, he could not withstand the sight; he trembled, tried to smile, and broke into sobbing.”

Berlioz’s supremacy in the field of orchestral composition, his knowledge of technique, his novel combination, his insight into the resources of instruments, his skill in grouping, his rich sense of color, are incontestably without a parallel, except by Beethoven and Wagner.  He describes his own method of study as follows: 

“I carried with me to the opera the score of whatever work was on the bill, and read during the performance.  In this way I began to familiarize myself with orchestral methods, and to learn the voice and quality of the various instruments, if not their range and mechanism.  By this attentive comparison of the effect with the means employed to produce it, I found the hidden link uniting musical expression to the special art of instrumentation.  The study of Beethoven, Weber, and Spontini, the impartial examination both of the customs of orchestration and of unusual forms and combinations, the visits I made to virtuosi, the trials I led them to make upon their respective instruments, and a little instinct, did for me the rest.”