Yet all this long, even distinguished, history does not fully prepare the way for the program music of Berlioz. It is not likely that he was familiar with much of it. And even if he had been he could have found no programmistic form or idea ready at hand for his program pieces. The program music idea was rather ‘in the air’ than in specific musical works. From the literary romanticists’ theory of the mixing of the genres and the mingling of the arts his lively mind no doubt drew a hint. And the influence of his teacher, Lesueur, at the Conservatory must be reckoned on. Lesueur was something of a radical and apostle of program music in his day, having been, in fact, relieved of his duties as director of music in Notre Dame because he insisted upon attuning men’s minds to piety by means of ‘picturesque and descriptive’ performances of the Mass. Program music! Here was a true forerunner of Berlioz--a very bad boy in a very solemn church. Perhaps this accounts for Berlioz’s veneration of his teacher, one of the few men who doesn’t figure somewhat disgracefully in the Memoirs. At any rate, the young revolutionist found in Lesueur a sympathetic spirit such as is rarely to be found in conservatories. To sum up, then, we find that Berlioz had no precedent in reputable music for a sustained work of a close descriptive nature. Works of picturesque quality, which specifically do not ‘depict events’--like the ‘Pastoral’ symphony--are not program music in the more exact sense. Isolated bits of description in good music, like the famous ‘leaping stag’ and ‘shaggy lion’ of Haydn’s ‘Creation,’ offer no analogy for sustained description. And the supposed pieces of sustained description, like the fashionable ‘battle’ pieces, had and deserved no musical standing. The _Fantastique_, as we shall see, was detailed and sustained description of the first rank musically. The gap between the _Fantastique_ and its supposed ancestors was quite complete. It was bridged by pure genius. As for the _leit-motif_, it is even more Berlioz’s own invention. The use of a particular theme to represent a particular personage or emotion was, of course, in such program music as had existed. But only in a few isolated instances had this been used recurrently to accompany a dramatic story. Mozart, in _Don Giovanni_, had used the famous trombone theme to represent the Statue, first in the Graveyard scene and later in the Supper scene. Weber had somewhat loosely used a particular theme to represent the devil Samiel in _Der Freischütz_. We know from Berlioz’s own description[98] how this work affected him in his early Parisian years and we may assume that the notion of the leit-motif took hold on him then. But the leit-motif in Mozart and Weber is hardly used as a deliberate device, rather only as a natural repetition under similar dramatic conditions. The use of the leit-motif in symphonic music, and its variation under varied conditions belongs solely to Berlioz.