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Hector Berlioz - Famous works

Romantic-era painting by Thomas Gainsborough reflecting themes of love and desire.
The themes of love and desire that define Berlioz’s music also resonate in this painting by Thomas Gainsborough.

The catalogue of Hector Berlioz reveals a composer driven by dramatic instinct, literary imagination, and an unprecedented approach to orchestral color. His most important works move freely between opera, symphony, choral drama, and orchestral spectacle, often blurring genre boundaries in the service of expressive intensity.

Taken as a whole, these works confirm Berlioz as one of the boldest innovators of the Romantic era. His music is theatrical even outside the opera house, driven by narrative impulse, psychological intensity, and an orchestral imagination that permanently reshaped the expressive possibilities of the symphony.

The following selection presents Berlioz’s most significant and representative works, grouped by genre.


Operas


Symphonies

  • Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
  • Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale

Choral and Vocal Works

  • La Révolution Greque (Scéne héroique)
  • La mort d’ Orphée
  • Hurts scènes de Faust, Op. 1
  • Sardanapale
  • Grande Messe des Morts
  • Le cinq Mai, chant sur la mort de l’ empereur Napoléon, Op. 6
  • La damnation de Faust

Orchestral Works - Overtures

  • Waverley, Op. 1
  • Le Roi Lear, Op. 4
  • Le carnaval Romain, Op. 9
  • Le corsaire, Op. 21

Choral and Vocal Works (Selected):

  • La Déploration de la bergère
  • La Mort de Cléopâtre
  • Herminie
  • Aubade
  • Le Roi de Thulè

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