The 'Symphonie Fantastique' (Episode in the life of an artist) was heard for the first time in Paris on 5 December 1830. Still we can feel the beating of the creator's heart at every performance. In the first movement.a young musician, afflicted with that moral complaint which a celebrated writer (Chateaubriand) calls "undirected emotionalism," sees the woman of his dreams and falls hopelessly in love. Each time her image comes into his mind, it evokes a musical thought (represented by an idee fixe) that is impassioned in character, but also noble and shy, as he imagines her to be.