<P> For the opening of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining (1980) by Stephen King, composer Wendy Carlos re-interpreted the "Dies Irae" section of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique using a Moog Synthesizer . </P> <P> Berlioz had a keen affection for literature, and many of his best compositions are inspired by literary works . For Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz was inspired in part by Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium - Eater . For La Damnation de Faust, Berlioz drew on Goethe's Faust; for Harold en Italie, he drew on Byron's Childe Harold; for Benvenuto Cellini, he drew on Cellini's own autobiography . For Roméo et Juliette, Berlioz turned, of course, to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . For his magnum opus, the monumental opera Les Troyens, Berlioz turned to Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid . In his last opera, the comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict, Berlioz prepared a libretto based loosely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing . His composition "Tristia" (for orchestra and chorus) drew its inspiration from Shakespeare's Hamlet . </P> <P> In 1827, Berlioz watched Irish actress Harriet Smithson at the Odéon theatre playing Ophelia and Juliet in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare . This led to two intense infatuations . One was to Smithson, which would result in a disastrous marriage . The other was to Shakespeare, which would become a lifelong love . He followed the rest of the 1827 season closely, until the company moved to the Salle Favart, and began learning the plays from pocket translations on sale . Though the performances were in English, of which Berlioz knew virtually none, he was still able to grasp the grandeur and sublimity of Shakespeare's language along with the richness of the plays' dramatic design . </P> <P> The timing for these performances, not just for Berlioz' career but also for French Romanticism in general, could not have been more apt . Berlioz was on the verge of producing his most Romantic works--as were the writers Vigny, Dumas, Gautier and several others in attendance that night . Shakespeare served as a model for French Romanticism, with Hugo extolling Shakespeare as a challenge to French classicism and the model for the new Romantic theater . </P>

Musical criticism was a source of income for both hector berlioz and