Berlioz

This first volume of David Cairns's biography of Berlioz, first published a decade ago (when it won the Royal Philharmonic Society's Music Awards, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year and The British Academies Derek Allen Prize) and now re-issued in a revised and corrected second edition, transforms our view of the composer of the Fantastic Symphony and has established itself as one of the outstanding biographies of any musician in English: "It is already clear," wrote one critic, "that Cairns is doing for Berlioz what Ernest Newman did for Wagner." In Berlioz: The Making of an Artist Cairns describes with unprecedented intimacy, affection and respect the early years of one of France's greatest artists. In researching the life Cairns has had access to a wealth of family papers. He is able to portray all the people close to Berlioz in his boyhood and to evoke a detailed picture of their existence in and around La Cote St. Andre in the foothills of the French Alps. No artists achievement connects more directly with early experience than that of Berlioz, whose passionate sensibility began to absorb the material of his art long before he had heard any musical ensemble other than the loc