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.