The symphony lasts about 45 minutes and is divided into 5 movements. Berlioz himself wrote down the story that the music describes, just as Beethoven had done with his "Sixth Symphony". Berlioz’s work is about a young artist. In the music the young artist is represented by a tune. This tune is often heard during the symphony. That is why it is called an “"idée fixe"”, which means a “fixed idea”, i.e. an idea that keeps coming again and again. An "idée fixe" is what Wagner would have called a leitmotif (a tune which is always used to describe a particular person or thing in a piece of music). The first performance took place at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. Berlioz made several changes to the music between 1831 and 1845.