The principal symphonies of Berlioz are works of colossal character and richness of treatment, some of them requiring several orchestras.  Contrasting with these are such marvels of delicacy as “Queen Mab,” of which it has been said that the “confessions of roses and the complaints of violets were noisy in comparison.”  A man of magnificent genius and knowledge, he was but little understood during his life, and it was only when his uneasy spirit was at rest that the world recognized his greatness.  Paris, that stoned him when he was living, now listens to his grand music with enthusiasm.  Hector Berlioz to the last never lost faith in himself, though this man of genius, in his much suffering from depression and melancholy, gave good witness to the truth of Goethe’s lines: 

     “Who never ate with tears his bread,
     Nor, weeping through the night’s long hours,
     Lay restlessly tossing on his bed—­
     He knows ye not, ye heavenly Powers!”

A man utterly without reticence, who, Gallic fashion, would shout his wrongs and sufferings to the uttermost ends of the earth, yet without a smack of Gallic posing and affectation, Berlioz talks much about himself, and dares to estimate himself boldly.  There was no small vanity about this colossal spirit.  He speaks of himself with outspoken frankness, as he would discuss another.  We can not do better than to quote one of these self-measurements:  “My style is in general very daring, but it has not the slightest tendency to destroy any of the constructive elements of art.  On the contrary, I seek to increase the number of these elements.  I have never dreamed, as has foolishly been supposed in France, of writing music without melody.  That school exists to-day in Germany, and I have a horror of it.  It is easy for any one to convince himself that, without confining myself to taking a very short melody for a theme, as the very greatest masters have, I have always taken care to invest my compositions with a real wealth of melody.  The value of these melodies, their distinction, their novelty, and charm, can be very well contested; it is not for me to appraise them.  But to deny their existence is either bad faith or stupidity; only as these melodies are often of very large dimensions, infantile and short-sighted minds do not clearly distinguish their form; or else they are wedded to other secondary melodies which veil their outlines from those same infantile minds; or, upon the whole, these melodies are so dissimilar to the little waggeries that the musical plebs call melodies that they can not make up their minds to give the same name to both.  The dominant qualities of my music are passionate expression, internal fire, rhythmic animation, and unexpected changes.”