You might say Hector Berlioz was a man easily governed by his passions.

When denied by the object of his affection, the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, he responded by furiously scrawling his “Symphonie fantastique,” an opium-induced fever dream that imagines his own execution for her murder. She then reappears during the course of a witches’ sabbath to mock his corpse. Perhaps counterintuitively, Smithson went for this in a big way, and the two were married on this date in 1833. Franz Liszt was one of the witnesses. Hardly surprising, but the union would not be a happy one.

Here’s a knock-out recording of “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” from “Symphony fantastique,” led by Argentinean powder keg Carlos Païta:

The witches’ sabbath quotes from the portentous “Dies irae,” a medieval plainchant still widely familiar thanks to its continued use in countless horror movies (including the opening credits of “The Shining”).

Liszt also used this theme as the basis for a set of variations for piano and orchestra, which he titled “Totentanz” (“Dance of Death”). Marvel here at the mercurial György Cziffra, captured live in concert:

Damn, if these Romantics weren’t so Halloween…