#we played march to the scaffold in high school orchestra one time so i have very fond memories of the whole piece

[gayestcowboy]

hector berlioz was goofy as hell. imagine being a renowned composer in 1827, and you go to a hamlet performance, and you fall so insanely in love with the actress playing ophelia that you write an entire programmatic symphony where your self insert gets so irrationally paranoid that she is going to reject you that you try and fail to kill yourself with opium and have a dream where you murder her, get marched to the scaffold, watch yourself be executed, and the woman you’re obsessed with shows up at the witches’ sabbath that crashed your funeral. the symphony becomes one of the most iconic pieces of music of the era. you never even met this woman until she realizes the symphony is about her, two years later, and you suicide bait her into marrying you by literally overdosing on opium in front of her, and pull out your antidote vial once she accepts. who fucking does that. and the hamlet performance happened on 9/11