"In the period between the death of Beethoven and about 1860, the symphony without a programme might have been considered moribund, and the present (and thus the future) could have been perceived to belong to music that was explicitly poetic. Although numerous composers contributed to this trend, Berlioz has left perhaps the largest footprints in this particular geological stratum. Berlioz was perceived by the poet and critic Gautier as one of a trinity of French Romanticism, with Victor Hugo and Eugene Delacroix, but this is more an indication of his perceived stature as a major outsider than to any artistic affinity."