 As a manifesto , this paragraph became significant for the amalgamation of symphonic and dramatic elements in the same musical composition . Musicologist Hugh MacDonald writes that as Berlioz kept the idea of symphonic construction closely in mind , he allowed the orchestra to express the majority of the drama in instrumental music and set expository and narrative sections in words . Fellow musicologist Nicholas Temperley suggests that , in Roméo , Berlioz created a model for how a dramatic text could guide the structure of a choral symphony without circumventing that work from being recognizably a symphony . In this sense , musicologist Mark Evans Bonds writes , the symphonies of Liszt and Mahler owe a debt of influence to Berlioz . 
