Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is undoubtedly the best writer among composers of all times (in Flaubert's words, "his style crushes Balzac's"). The vocational exercise of the written expression constituted for him an extension of his creative spirit, in such a way that he needed literature to give a complete artistic sense to his musical compositions, in the same way that, in the opposite direction, the musical content impregnates the totality of his writings. Author of four major works Les soirées de l ?? orchester (1852), Les grotesques de la musique (1859), À travers chants (1862) and his Mémoires (1868) ??, is also responsible for a production huge number of newspaper articles (collected in six volumes) and a correspondence whose compilation reaches the eighth volume. The fundamental theme of this book, like that of all Berliozian writings, is that of musical practice. In it, the auth...read more