Editing Hector Berlioz (section)

===1803–1821: early years ===
Berlioz was born on 11 December 1803,{{refn|Although baptised "Louis-Hector", he was always known as Hector.<ref>Cairns (2000), p. 36</ref> His date of birth was officially recorded as 19th Frimaire of the year XII, as the [[French Republican Calendar]] was still in use.<ref>Barzun, p. 15</ref>|group= n}} the eldest child of {{ill|Louis Berlioz|fr}} (1776–1848), a physician, and his wife, Marie-Antoinette Joséphine, ''née'' Marmion (1784–1838).{{refn|Cairns uses "Josephine" as Mme Berlioz's usual name, as does Diana Bickley in the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'';<ref>Cairns (2000), p. 12</ref><ref name=dnb>Bickley, Diana. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-52422 "Berlioz, Louis Hector"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181011133509/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-52422 |date=11 October 2018 }}, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 19 October 2018. {{ODNBsub}}</ref> other writers, including Jacques Barzun and Hugh Macdonald, refer to her as "Marie-Antoinette".<ref>Barzun, p. 27</ref><ref name=grove/>|group= n}} [[Musée Hector-Berlioz|His birthplace]] was the family home in the [[Communes of France|commune]] of [[La Côte-Saint-André]] in the [[département]] of [[Isère]], in south-eastern France. His parents had five more children, three of whom died in infancy;<ref>Holoman (1989), p. 9</ref> their surviving daughters, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout their lives.<ref name=grove>Macdonald, Hugh. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.51424 "Berlioz, (Louis-)Hector"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 18 October 2018. {{subscription}} {{Cite web |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051424 |title=Archived copy |access-date=30 October 2023 |archive-date=1 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501212914/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051424 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref>Barzun, pp. 21 and 60</ref>

[[File:Louis-Berlioz-father-of-Hector.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=oil painting of head and shoulders of white man in early 19th-century costume, with receding grey hair and neat side-whiskers|Louis Berlioz, the composer's father {{circa|1840}}]]

Berlioz's father, a respected local figure, was a progressively minded doctor credited as the first European to practise and write about [[acupuncture]].<ref>Holoman (1989), p. 6</ref> He was an [[agnostic]] with a liberal outlook; his wife was a strict [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] of less flexible views.<ref>Crabbe, pp. 16 and 24</ref> After briefly attending a local school when he was about ten, Berlioz was educated at home by his father.<ref>Cairns (2000), pp. 30–31</ref> He recalled in his ''Mémoires'' that he enjoyed geography, especially books about travel, to which his mind would sometimes wander when he was supposed to be studying Latin; the classics nonetheless made an impression on him, and he was moved to tears by [[Virgil]]'s account of the tragedy of [[Dido]] and [[Aeneas]].<ref>Berlioz, pp. 34–35</ref> Later he studied philosophy, rhetoric, and – because his father planned a medical career for him – anatomy.<ref>Bloom (2000), p. xiv</ref>

Music did not feature prominently in the young Berlioz's education. His father gave him basic instruction on the [[flageolet]], and he later took flute and guitar lessons with local teachers. He never studied the piano, and throughout his life played haltingly at best.<ref name=grove/> He later contended that this was an advantage because it "saved me from the tyranny of keyboard habits, so dangerous to thought, and from the lure of conventional harmonies".<ref name=b41>Berlioz, p. 41</ref>

At the age of twelve Berlioz fell in love for the first time. The object of his affections was an eighteen-year-old neighbour, Estelle Dubœuf. He was teased for what was seen as a boyish infatuation, but something of his early passion for Estelle endured all his life.<ref>Barzun, p. 263; and Cairns (1999), p. 769</ref> He poured some of his unrequited feelings into his early attempts at composition. Trying to master harmony, he read [[Jean-Philippe Rameau|Rameau's]] ''[[Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels|Traité de l'harmonie]]'', which proved incomprehensible to a novice, but [[Charles-Simon Catel]]'s simpler treatise on the subject made it clearer to him.<ref>Berlioz, p. 40</ref> He wrote several chamber works as a youth,<ref>Holoman (1989), p. 13</ref> subsequently destroying the manuscripts, but one theme that remained in his mind reappeared later as the A-flat second subject of the overture to ''[[Les Francs-juges]]''.<ref name=b41/>