At 92, The Man Who Wrote The Book On Berlioz Resumes His Case
Fans of Hector Berlioz — and record companies, it appears — need no excuse to celebrate the music of the pioneering French composer and quick-witted music critic. The sesquicentennial of Berlioz's death falls on March 8, and to mark the occasion, Warner Classics has released a 27-CD box containing, purportedly, every forward-thinking note the composer ever wrote.
The byline of the album notes belongs to none other than David Cairns, the Yoda of all things Berlioz. He's the author of a 1500-page, two-volume biography of the composer and the translator and editor of The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz, one of the wittiest and erudite autobiographies imaginable.
Speaking from his home in London, Cairns, now a sharp 92-year-old, talked at length about Berlioz's life and times, misunderstanding the composer's music at first, and why he thinks we need free spirits like Berlioz to keep our minds open.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tom Huizenga: How did you first come to Berlioz?
David Cairns: My musical upbringing was extremely Germanic and I didn't discover Berlioz until I was over 30. For me it was Bach and then Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart and Wagner.
I remember in the early '50s — it must have been the first long-playing recording of Berlioz's, I think was by [Eduard] and the Concertgebouw Orchestra — my sister said, "You must listen to this." And I listened to it and it was complete gibberish to me. It's extraordinary because she said that when she first heard some Berlioz, it was like being in a foreign country and suddenly hearing your own language spoken.
