Yet this ‘controlled romanticism,’ which Mendelssohn doubtless hoped would found a school, had little historical result. The frenzied spirits of the time needed some more vigorous stimulation, and those who had vitality sufficient to make history were not the ones to be guided by an academic gourmet. The Mendelssohn concert overtures are a pleasant by-path in music; they by no means strike a note to ring down the corridors of time. ‘Controlled romanticism’ was not the message for Mendelssohn’s age; for this age was essentially militant, smashing idols and blazing new paths, and nothing could feed its appetite save bitter fruit. This bitter fruit it had in full measure in Berlioz’s romantic symphonies, as in Liszt’s symphonic poems. Of the true romantic symphonies the most remarkable is Berlioz’s _Symphonie Fantastique_, one of the most astonishing productions in the whole history of music. It seems safe to say that in historical fruitfulness this work ranks with three or four others of the greatest--Monteverdi’s opera _Orfeo_, in 1607; Wagner’s _Tristan_, and what else? The _Fantastique_ created program music; it made an art form of the dramatic symphony (including the not yet invented symphonic poem and all forms of free and story-telling symphonic works). At the same time it gave artistic existence to the _leit-motif_, or representative theme, the most fruitful single musical invention of the nineteenth century. The _Fantastique_ seems to have no ancestry; there is nothing in previous musical literature to which more than the vaguest parallel can be drawn, and there is nothing in Berlioz’s previous works to indicate that he had the power to take a new idea--two new ideas--out of the sky and work them out with such mature mastery. One might have expected a period of experimentation. One might at least expect the work to be the logical outcome of experiments by other men. But Berlioz had no true ancestor in this form; he had no more than chance forerunners.