In 1830, Hector Berlioz became quite a name in Paris, though one would be hard-pressed to choose which adjective would best describe him: “famous” or “notorious.” His hallucinatory Symphonie Fantastique put him on the musical map, but his obsessive courtship (today it would be called “stalking”) of English actress Harriet Smithson only added to the conception that he had perhaps had one puff too many of the opium ingested by the hero of his quasi-autobiographical symphony. Cast in five movements, Symphonie Fantastique celebrated the wedding of an explicit storyline with symphonic form. The chilling fever dream of a work ends with a “March to the Scaffold” and a “Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath,” and finally, the Medieval Dies irae theme returns in a mockery of the Catholic church.