The movements have these titles, alluding to a programme: The Italian composer Niccolò Paganini encouraged Hector Berlioz to write Harold en Italie.

When Paganini saw the sketch of the allegro movement, with all the rests in the viola part, he told Berlioz it would not do, and that he expected to be playing continuously.

A few years later, Paganini was in Paris again and attended a concert including the Symphonie Fantastique and Harold en Italie conducted by Berlioz.

[citation needed] My intention was to write a series of orchestral scenes, in which the solo viola would be involved as a more or less active participant while retaining its own character.

By placing it among the poetic memories formed from my wanderings in the Abruzzi, I wanted to make the viola a kind of melancholy dreamer in the manner of Byron's Childe-Harold.That he had recycled some of the material from his discarded concert overture Rob Roy went unmentioned.

The manner in which the viola theme hesitantly repeats its opening phrase — gaining confidence, like an idea forming, before the long melody spills out in its entirety — was satirized in a musical paper after the premiere: "Ha!

"[6]) Harold in Italy was premiered on 23 November 1834 with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Chrétien Urhan playing the viola part, Narcisse Girard conducting.

Even though the second movement "March of the Pilgrims" received an encore, this performance contributed to Berlioz's decision to conduct his own music in the future.

Paganini did not hear the work he had commissioned until 16 December 1838; then he was so overwhelmed by it that, following the performance, he dragged Berlioz onto the stage and there knelt and kissed his hand before a wildly cheering audience and applauding musicians.