Berlioz: Deep Research Outline
The Architect of the Impossible: Hector Berlioz and the Invention of Modern Sound
1. Introduction: The Berlioz Paradox
In the grand narrative of nineteenth-century music, Hector Berlioz stands as the great anomaly, a figure who defies the neat categorization of the Romantic era. Chronologically situated between the death of Ludwig van Beethoven and the ascendancy of Richard Wagner, he fits uncomfortably into the standard lineage of Germanic Romanticism that dominates music history. While his contemporaries—Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and Frédéric Chopin—were refining harmonic languages within established forms and often composing from the piano, Berlioz was dismantling the very infrastructure of the orchestra itself. He was a composer who could not play the piano, a melodist accused of having no melody, and a French artist who found his greatest reception in the concert halls of Germany, Russia, and England while being systematically ostracized by the Parisian musical establishment.1
The "Berlioz Paradox" lies in the disconnect between his towering genius and his precarious professional existence. He was the most original orchestrator in history, yet he was forced to earn his living as a music critic, a job he often described with visceral disdain. He was a revolutionary who codified the "Music of the Future" before Wagner appropriated the term, yet he rejected the metaphysical heaviness of the German school in favor of a Mediterranean aesthetic rooted in Gluck and Virgil. His life was a "tragic struggle of new ideas for acceptance," an "endless series of great successes and great failures" where the failure of an opera like Benvenuto Cellini could leave him destitute, while a tour of Russia could see him hailed as a musical messiah.1
This report provides an exhaustive analysis of Hector Berlioz’s multidimensional career. It argues that his "independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules" 2 was not merely contrarianism but a calculated, scientific restructuring of musical possibility. By analyzing his transition from medical student to composer, his revolutionary approach to instrumentation, his invention of the dramatic symphony, and his contentious relationships with the avant-garde of his time, this document elucidates how Berlioz essentially invented the modern orchestra and the role of the interpretive conductor. Furthermore, it explores the long-standing critical division regarding his competence—the "Berlioz Problem"—and his eventual rehabilitation in the twentieth century.5
2. Part I: The Anatomist of Sound (Biography & Formation)
2.1 The Medical Trauma and the Anatomical Gaze
Hector Berlioz’s entry into the world of music was uniquely non-traditional, a fact that profoundly shaped his compositional identity. Born on December 11, 1803, in La Côte-Saint-André, Isère, he was the son of a respected physician, Dr. Louis-Joseph Berlioz. Unlike the prodigies Mozart or Mendelssohn, who were steeped in music from infancy, Berlioz was groomed for a life of science. His father, a man of "liberal" but strict views, assumed Hector would follow in his footsteps.1
In 1821, at the age of eighteen, Berlioz moved to Paris to study medicine. This period, though brief, left an indelible mark on his psyche and his artistic method. He later described his life in Paris as being "placed... between death and pleasure, between hideous corpses and ravishing dancers".8 His introduction to the dissection amphitheater was traumatic. In his Mémoires, he recounts the visceral horror of entering the dissecting room for the first time, a scene of such repulsion that he leapt out of the window to escape.8 Yet, he returned. He persevered for a year, attending classes on anatomy and physiology, studying the works of Bichat, and engaging with the scientific debates of his day.8
This medical training was not without aesthetic consequence. Scholars have persuasively argued that Berlioz applied a "clinical coolness" and an "anatomical bent of mind" to the orchestra.8 Just as a surgeon understands the distinct, functional autonomy of every organ, Berlioz approached instrumentation not as a homogenized blend of sound—as was common in the piano-centric composition of the time—but as a complex organism of distinct, articulated parts. He admired the great surgeon Amussat, calling him an "artist in anatomy," a compliment that reveals Berlioz’s own self-conception as an "anatomist" of the orchestra.8 He dissected timbres to understand their individual properties—range, color, agility—before reassembling them into a living musical body. This bio-medical background also explains his keen, lifelong interest in the physiological effects of music, specifically the "vibrational therapeutic capacities" of sound and the nervous system's reaction to rhythm, which he discussed with the precision of a physiologist.9
2.2 The Guitar and Flute: An Orchestration of Necessity
A critical and often overlooked factor in Berlioz's development is his instrument of choice. Unlike the vast majority of nineteenth-century Romantic composers—Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner—Berlioz was not a pianist. He never mastered the keyboard. Instead, he played the flute, the flageolet, and the guitar.1
This lack of keyboard proficiency was traditionally viewed as a handicap, a source of the "clumsy" harmony critics often disparaged. However, modern scholarship suggests it was the very source of his orchestral originality. The piano, by its nature, acts as a filter; it homogenizes texture. A chord played on a piano blends naturally due to the mechanics of the instrument. A composer working at the piano thinks in terms of hand positions and percussive attack. Berlioz, lacking this tactile reference, was forced to compose directly for the orchestra. He could not rely on ten fingers to fill out harmony; he had to rely on the specific interplay of woodwind and string lines.
Research into the "acticity" of his music—the physical act of performance inscribed in the score—suggests that the guitar fundamentally shaped his orchestral writing.5 His orchestral textures often resemble giant guitar fingerings, characterized by wide spacings (open voicings) and specific pizzicato effects that a pianist would not instinctively conceive. The "transparency" of his sound, even when using massive forces, derives from the guitar's clarity and the flute's linearity. Berlioz famously claimed that his mastery of these "three majestic, incomparable instruments" (flute, guitar, flageolet) drove him toward "the most immense orchestral effects," implying that his lack of keyboard dependency freed him to imagine "Musical Mediterraneans" that others could not navigate.11 He was not bound by the "ten fingers" limitation; his palette was infinite.
2.3 The Prix de Rome and the Struggle for Legitimacy
Berlioz’s transition from medicine to music was a violent rupture with his family. His father, furious at the betrayal of his medical destiny, cut off his allowance, plunging Berlioz into financial precarity.2 Despite this, Berlioz enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire in 1826, studying composition under Jean-François Le Sueur and counterpoint with Anton Reicha.2
His academic career was defined by friction. He was a radical student in a conservative institution. His goal was the prestigious Prix de Rome, the highest honor for a French composer, which granted a government pension and residency in Italy. Berlioz’s struggle to win this prize is emblematic of his relationship with the French establishment. He failed three times before finally winning on his fourth attempt in 1830.1 His submissions were often deemed "unperformable" or too unconventional by the academic jury. Even when he won, he found the residency in Rome stifling, longing for the musical vibrancy of Paris. Yet, the struggle forged his resilience and solidified his identity as an outsider who had to force the doors of the establishment open rather than waiting for an invitation.
2.4 Harriet Smithson: The Muse and the Madness
No biography of Berlioz is complete without the name Harriet Smithson. In 1827, Berlioz attended a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet by an English touring company at the Odéon Theatre in Paris.15 He did not speak English, yet the experience was a "thunderbolt" (coup de foudre). He was captivated not only by the drama of Shakespeare—who became a lifelong obsession—but by the Irish actress playing Ophelia and Juliet, Harriet Smithson.
Berlioz fell into a state of "delirious anguish" and obsession.1 He pursued her with a mania that, by modern standards, would be classified as stalking. He wrote her endless letters (which she ignored), rented an apartment near hers to watch her comings and goings, and roamed the streets of Paris in a fever state.16 This unrequited passion became the catalyst for his most famous work, the Symphonie fantastique.
The trajectory of this relationship is a tragedy in three acts. First, the distant obsession that fueled his creativity. Second, the eventual meeting and marriage in 1833, after Smithson’s career had declined and she had finally heard the symphony she inspired.2 Third, the disintegration of the marriage. As Berlioz’s fame rose, Smithson’s faded; she became jealous, possessive, and eventually an invalid, suffering from paralysis and alcoholism.15 Berlioz, though he eventually took a mistress (Marie Recio) and separated from Harriet, supported her financially until her death, a testament to the complex entanglement of art, guilt, and loyalty that defined his emotional life.15
3. Part II: The Technological Sublime (Instrumentation & Conducting)
3.1 The Treatise: Codifying the Modern Sound
In 1844, Berlioz published his Grand traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes (Treatise on Instrumentation), a landmark text that did more to shape the sound of Romanticism than any symphony. Before Berlioz, orchestration was often treated as an intuitive craft, secondary to harmony and melody. Berlioz transformed it into a technology, a science of sound.20
He analyzed the "chromatic range, tone quality, and limitations" of every instrument, from the violin to the ophicleide, with the rigor of the anatomist he once trained to be.20 The treatise was not merely descriptive; it was prescriptive and poetic. He characterized instruments with human attributes: the clarinet was "epic," the voice of "heroic love," while the massed brass evoked warlike grandeur.21
Berlioz was a tireless advocate for technological innovation in instrument manufacturing. He dedicated significant space to "New Instruments," becoming one of the first champions of Adolphe Sax.
The Saxophone: Berlioz identified the saxophone, then a brand-new invention, as possessing a "new voice" with "rare and valuable qualities." He described its timbre as bridging the gap between brass and woodwinds, "vaguely reminiscent of the tone of the cello, of the clarinet and of the cor anglais," but with a unique "pontifical" calm in the lower register.21
The Ophicleide: A keyed brass instrument (a precursor to the tuba) that Berlioz used extensively, notably in the Symphonie fantastique and the Requiem. He was a pragmatist, however; as the valved tuba gained prominence, he acknowledged the ophicleide's obsolescence, noting the tuba's superior power and pitch stability, eventually sanctioning the substitution of tubas in his own scores.21
His influence on the next generation was absolute. Modest Mussorgsky, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov studied the work religiously.20 Richard Strauss, who revised the treatise in 1905, acknowledged Berlioz as the foundational grammarian of the modern orchestra.20
3.2 The Ideal Orchestra: Industrial Scale
Berlioz’s vision extended to the sheer scale of the ensemble. He was dissatisfied with the standard orchestras of his day, which he felt were unbalanced—often heavy on wind and brass but lacking the string power to counterbalance them. In his treatise, he proposed an "Ideal Orchestra" of 465 instruments, a massive industrial force capable of unprecedented dynamic range.23
Table 1: Berlioz's "Ideal Orchestra" Composition 23
Instrument Group
Quantity
Specifics
Violins
120
Divided into 2, 3, or 4 parts for complex textures
Violas
40
At least 10 playing viola d'amore
Cellos
45
Divided into firsts and seconds
Double Basses
33
18 tuned in 5ths, 15 in 4ths (for range extension)
Woodwinds
38
Includes 6 flutes, 4 Eb flutes, 6 oboes, etc.
Brass
34
Includes 16 horns, cornets, trombones, tubas
New/Hybrid
9
4 Octobasses (giant basses), 5 Saxophones
Percussion
30+
Massive battery including multiple timpanists
Harp/Piano
30
30 Harps, 30 Pianos (used as orchestral percussion)
Total
465+
Plus a choir of 360 voices
This proposal was not megalomania but a desire for nuance. Berlioz argued that a massive string section allows for a pianissimo of extreme hush and intensity—a "shimmer"—that a smaller section cannot achieve. He viewed the orchestra as a "large instrument" or a "machine endowed with intelligence" played by the conductor.21
3.3 The Modern Conductor: The Magnetized Scepter
Berlioz was arguably the first modern virtuoso conductor. Before him, conducting was often a functional task performed by the concertmaster (violinist) or a keyboardist beating time. Berlioz transformed the conductor into an interpretive artist, a singular figure of authority.
He advocated for the use of a baton (which he described as a "magnetized scepter" in the hands of a master) rather than a violin bow or rolled-up paper.25 He wrote a dedicated essay on "The Art of the Conductor," where he laid out principles that are now standard but were revolutionary at the time.26
Sectional Rehearsals: He introduced the practice of rehearsing sections of the orchestra (strings alone, woodwinds alone) to ensure precision in difficult passages.21
The Gaze: He demanded that players look at the conductor, asserting the conductor's role as the sole interpreter of the tempo and phrasing. "An orchestra which does not watch the conducting stick has no conductor," he famously declared.28
Subdivision: He detailed the mechanics of beating time, including the subdivision of beats for slow movements and recitatives, treating the orchestra like a single voice.28
His own conducting style was described by contemporaries as electric and precise, a stark contrast to the time-beaters of the past. He toured Europe conducting his own works, effectively creating the model of the composer-conductor that Mahler and Strauss would later emulate.3
4. Part III: The Symphonic Dramatist (Works Analysis)
4.1 Symphonie fantastique: Autobiography as Form
The Symphonie fantastique (1830) is the cornerstone of Berlioz’s legacy and the manifesto of musical Romanticism. Premiered when he was just 26 years old, it was explicitly autobiographical, born directly from his obsessive love for Harriet Smithson. The symphony is not merely a collection of movements but an "Episode in the Life of an Artist," where the musical structure is strictly dictated by a narrative program that Berlioz distributed to the audience.29
The Idée Fixe and Monomania:
The central innovation of the work is the idée fixe (fixed idea), a recurring melody representing the Beloved (Smithson). Unlike a Wagnerian leitmotif, which undergoes symphonic development and permeates the texture, the idée fixe is a fully formed melody that intrudes upon various scenes, representing the artist's psychological obsession.31 It is a musical representation of monomania.
First Movement (Reveries/Passions): The theme appears in its pure, idealized form, representing the "undefined passion" and "delirious anguish" of first love.29
Second Movement (A Ball): It appears transformed into a waltz rhythm. Amidst the tumult of a party, the artist catches a fleeting glimpse of the beloved.33
Third Movement (Scene in the Country): It returns, disturbed, reflecting the artist's anxiety and isolation in nature.
Fourth Movement (March to the Scaffold): Following an opium overdose, the artist dreams he has killed the beloved and is being led to execution. The music is a terrifying march. At the very end, the idée fixe reappears briefly in the clarinet—a last thought of love—before being brutally cut short by the "fatal blow" of the orchestra (the guillotine).17
Fifth Movement (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath): The transformation is complete. The noble theme is grotesquely distorted into a "vulgar dance tune," played by the E-flat clarinet (a shrill instrument Berlioz chose specifically for this mocking effect). The beloved has become a witch, joining the demonic orgy at the artist's funeral.17
The Dies Irae and the Grotesque:
In the finale, Berlioz introduces the Dies Irae, the solemn medieval chant for the dead. He assigns it to the ophicleides and bassoons, parodying the sacred melody to depict a satanic mockery of judgment.22 This juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, the serious and the grotesque, became a hallmark of the Romantic aesthetic. It was a deliberate violation of academic rules, intended to shock the listener into the narrative reality of the nightmare.
4.2 Harold in Italy: The Anti-Concerto
Following Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz composed Harold in Italy (1834) at the request of the legendary virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who wanted a vehicle for his new Stradivarius viola.36 However, Berlioz refused to write a standard virtuoso display piece. Instead, he created a symphony with a viola obbligato.
The viola represents the character of Childe Harold (from Byron’s poem), a melancholy observer who witnesses various scenes—mountaineers, pilgrims, brigands—but rarely participates in them.36 The solo part is notably restrained, often playing long, sustained lines while the orchestra rages around it. Paganini, expecting a flurry of notes, initially rejected the work, complaining that he was not "playing all the time".37
Berlioz’s refusal to bow to virtuoso convention demonstrates his prioritization of poetic integrity over commercial appeal. The idée fixe returns here, but as a marker of the protagonist's identity rather than an obsessive object.32 The work is a study in isolation, with the viola standing apart from the collective joy of the orchestra, embodying the Byronic hero's alienation.
4.3 Roméo et Juliette: The Dramatic Symphony
With Roméo et Juliette (1839), Berlioz pushed the symphonic form to its breaking point. He called it a "dramatic symphony," a hybrid genre that sits between opera and symphony.39 It utilizes a large orchestra, three solo voices, and a choir.
Berlioz made the radical decision to depict the central characters—Romeo and Juliet—purely through instruments, not voices. He argued that the "sublime love" of the couple was too infinite for words and could only be expressed by the "instrumental language" of the orchestra.41 The famous "Love Scene" is an extended orchestral adagio, widely considered one of the finest depictions of passion in the 19th-century repertoire. Voices are used for secondary characters (Mercutio, Friar Laurence) and the chorus, which acts as a narrator. This structure influenced Wagner, who saw in it the potential for the orchestra to carry the dramatic burden, a concept he would expand into the continuous orchestral narrative of his music dramas.42
5. Part IV: Spatiality and Monumentality
5.1 Grande Messe des morts: Architectural Composition
The Grande Messe des morts (Requiem), composed in 1837, is Berlioz’s most audacious experiment in spatial acoustics. Commissioned for a state memorial service at the Invalides in Paris, Berlioz utilized the vast architectural space of the cathedral as a musical parameter.43 He did not just write music for a room; he wrote music with the room.
5.2 The Four Brass Bands
The defining feature of the Requiem—specifically the Tuba Mirum movement—is the use of four brass bands stationed at the four cardinal points of the performance venue (North, South, East, West), completely independent of the main orchestra and choir located in the center.43
Acoustic Effect: The bands answer each other antiphonally, creating a "surround-sound" effect that mimics the summoning of souls from the four corners of the earth for the Last Judgment.45 The sound travels physically across the audience, enveloping them in a sonic apocalypse.
The Percussion Battery: To match the brass, Berlioz employs a massive percussion section, including 16 timpani played by 10 players. This allows for complex chordal rolls on the timpani, creating a low, rumbling "cataclysmic decree" that is physically felt as much as heard.6
This work anticipates the spatial music of the 20th century, foreshadowing the experiments of composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis. It remains a logistical and acoustic marvel, requiring a venue of cathedral proportions to be realized as intended.
6. Part V: The Operatic Vision
6.1 Benvenuto Cellini: The Grand Failure
Berlioz’s relationship with the opera house was fraught with difficulty. His first completed opera, Benvenuto Cellini (1838), was a spectacular failure at the Paris Opéra. The work, vibrant and rhythmically complex, baffled the audience and the musicians. The failure was a significant blow to Berlioz’s career in France, closing the doors of the Opéra to him for decades and forcing him to rely on concert tours abroad for income.2
6.2 Les Troyens: The Virgilian Epic
Les Troyens (The Trojans) was Berlioz’s life ambition, a "grand opera" on a scale that dwarfed his contemporaries. Based on Virgil’s Aeneid, a text he had adored since childhood under his father’s tutelage, it is a massive five-act work composed between 1856 and 1858.46 It represents the culmination of his dramatic style, synthesizing the lyricism of Gluck with the orchestral power of the modern era.
Berlioz vs. Wagner:
Often compared to Wagner’s Ring due to its mythological scope and length, Les Troyens is fundamentally different in aesthetic.
Structure: While Wagner moved toward "endless melody" and the dissolution of separate numbers, Berlioz retained the "number opera" format (arias, ensembles, ballets), though he connected them with fluid, dramatic recitative.48
Philosophy: Berlioz rejected the metaphysical heaviness of the German school. His aesthetic was Mediterranean—rooted in light, clarity, and the classical tragedy of Gluck.49
The "Royal Hunt and Storm": This famous symphonic interlude (Act IV) encapsulates the opera’s tragic romance through purely instrumental means. It is a pantomime of nature and passion, utilizing spatial effects (offstage hunting horns) and a "chromatic phrase" depicting the awakening of love. It remains one of the most evocative nature paintings in all of music.46
Tragically, Berlioz never saw Les Troyens performed in its entirety. The Paris Opéra only performed the second half (Les Troyens à Carthage) in a mutilated version in 1863. The full work was not staged until decades after his death, a delay that fueled the "Berlioz Problem" myth.2
6.3 Béatrice et Bénédict: The Late Comedy
His final opera, Béatrice et Bénédict (1862), marks a return to Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing). In contrast to the epic Troyens, this is a light, witty opéra comique. It demonstrates Berlioz’s ability to handle humor and delicate textures, proving that his "colossal" reputation obscured a capacity for grace and irony. He famously sketched the music for a duet during a boring speech at the Institute, highlighting his irreverent creative spark even in his later years.52
7. Part VI: The Critic and the War of the Romantics
7.1 Berlioz as Writer
Berlioz supported himself largely through journalism, writing for the Journal des Débats for over thirty years. He was a brilliant stylist, his prose marked by wit, irony, and deep insight. His writings, collected in volumes like Evenings with the Orchestra (where musicians tell stories to pass the time during bad operas) and his Mémoires, provide a vivid, often satirical picture of 19th-century musical life.53
He fought tirelessly for his musical gods—Beethoven, Gluck, and Weber—writing a famous "Critical Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies" that helped establish Beethoven's canon in France.55 However, he detested the job of the critic, viewing it as a distraction from composition. "I write for my living," he lamented, "but I compose for my life."
7.2 The Circle of Influence: Liszt and Wagner
Berlioz’s relationship with the "New German School" (Liszt and Wagner) was the central geopolitical drama of his career.
Franz Liszt: Liszt was Berlioz’s greatest champion and closest ally for many years. He transcribed the Symphonie fantastique for piano, making it accessible to a wider public, and organized "Berlioz Weeks" in Weimar, where Berlioz’s operas were performed when Paris rejected them.57 They shared a love for program music and the "transformation of themes." However, their friendship cooled in later years as Liszt became more devoted to Wagner’s cause, which Berlioz viewed with suspicion.57
Richard Wagner: The relationship between Berlioz and Wagner was one of mutual respect tempered by aesthetic incompatibility. Wagner admired Berlioz’s orchestration but found his adherence to French forms baffling. Berlioz, in turn, was disturbed by the "Music of the Future." He famously struggled with the Tristan prelude, calling it a "chaotic musical enigma" and reacting against the dissolution of tonality represented by the "Tristan chord".59 Despite this "War of the Romantics," they maintained a cordial personal relationship; the famous "Pineapple Letter" reveals Berlioz inviting Wagner to dine and share a pineapple from Brazil, a moment of human warmth amidst the aesthetic battles.61
8. Part VII: Legacy and Rehabilitation
8.1 The "Berlioz Problem"
For decades after his death in 1869, Berlioz was viewed as a "monster" of the orchestra—a composer of brilliant moments but incoherent wholes.62 His harmonic language, often modal and rooted in linear counterpoint rather than vertical chords, was misunderstood by critics trained in German theory. This "Berlioz Problem"—the question of whether he was a genius or a charlatan—persisted well into the 20th century.5
8.2 The 20th Century Revival
The rehabilitation of Berlioz was driven by two key figures who recontextualized his work:
Jacques Barzun: The cultural historian whose monumental biography Berlioz and the Romantic Century (1950) dismantled the myths of Berlioz as a chaotic eccentric. Barzun argued that Berlioz was a rigorous intellectual and the true embodiment of the Romantic era, possessing a "classic" sense of form beneath the surface storm.62
Colin Davis: The British conductor whose complete cycle of recordings (including the first complete Les Troyens) proved that Berlioz’s music was structurally sound and dramatically potent. Davis revealed that the perceived "irregularities" in Berlioz’s phrases were actually sophisticated rhythmic asymmetries that required a new style of conducting.6
8.3 Influence on Modernism
Berlioz's impact is undeniably etched into the DNA of modern music.
Gustav Mahler: Mahler adopted Berlioz’s concept of the "instrumental drama," his use of spatial effects (offstage brass in Mahler’s 2nd), and the juxtaposition of the sublime and the banal (irony). The massive scale of Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand" is the direct descendant of Berlioz’s Requiem and Te Deum.64
Richard Strauss: Strauss built directly upon Berlioz’s orchestration treatise and his concept of the tone poem. He conducted Berlioz’s music frequently and edited the treatise, ensuring Berlioz’s technical legacy continued into the 20th century.64
9. Conclusion
Hector Berlioz was a visionary who imagined the music of the future by bypassing the conventions of the present. He liberated the orchestra from the keyboard, treating it as a distinct medium with its own laws of physics and expression. Through the Symphonie fantastique, he introduced psychological realism into symphonic form; through the Requiem, he unlocked the spatial dimension of sound; and through his treatise and conducting, he professionalized the performance of music.
He was a man out of time, an "eccentric oddity" to Wagner, a "monster" to Debussy, but a "noble fellow" to Liszt. His life was a testament to the power of the artistic will against the inertia of institutions. As Berlioz himself prophetically stated: "Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils".67 In his case, time eventually resurrected the pupil. Today, Berlioz is recognized not just as a great orchestrator, but as the essential architect of the modern sonic landscape, a composer who heard the world differently and, through sheer force of will, taught the world to hear it with him.
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