The first performance of a landmark musical work of the Romantic period, the "Symphonie fantastique" of Berlioz, took place on today's date in 1830, at the Paris Conservatory.

"Symphonie fantastique" was inspired by the composer's infatuation with an English Shakespearean actress, Harriet Smithson. When she ignored him, Berlioz wrote his "Fantastic" symphony as a musical depiction of his stormy passion for the charismatic red-haired actress, who is transformed via the musical theme from an ideal vision of beauty into a nightmarish participant in a Witches' Sabbath. It's a wild and colorful symphonic trip.

As with any such groundbreaking work, early opinions were divided. Franz Liszt attended the premiere and was so impressed that he became Berlioz's friend and even prepared a solo piano transcription of the symphony. Paganini was bowled over and asked Berlioz to write something for him. On the other hand, the conservative director of the Paris Conservatory, Luigi Cherubini, uncomfortable with the radical new style of Berlioz, refused to attend, commenting: "I don't need to be taught how NOT to write music."

The reaction of the first night audience was mostly positive, and Berlioz wrote in his Memoirs that the movement titled "March to the Scaffold" was especially well received. He also claimed that he wrote this march in a single night—but that claim, like the whole symphony, may be a bit "fantastic. "