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Responses: Musical Essays and Reviews
Book by Cairns, David
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 1973
4 people want to read
About the author
David Cairns
60 books2 followersDavid Adam Cairns is a British journalist, non-fiction writer, and musician, widely regarded as a leading authority on Hector Berlioz. The son of neurosurgeon Sir Hugh Cairns, he co-founded the Chelsea Opera Group in 1950 with Stephen Gray, presenting Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Oxford under a young Colin Davis, with whom he later championed Berlioz’s works. Cairns served as classical programme coordinator for Philips Records (1967–1972), providing sleeve notes for Davis’s landmark Berlioz recordings. His English translation of Berlioz’s Mémoires was published in 1969. Cairns held prominent journalism roles, including music critic and arts editor for The Spectator and chief music critic of the Sunday Times (1983–1992), and contributed to the Evening Standard, Financial Times, and New Statesman. His two-volume biography of Berlioz—The Making of an Artist 1803–1832 (1989) and Servitude and Greatness 1832–1869 (1999)—received widespread acclaim and multiple awards. He founded the Thorington Players in 1983 and has written on composers including Mozart, emphasizing the emotional depth of their music. Cairns was appointed CBE (1997), elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2001), and named Officier and later Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to French music.
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November 8, 2017
It was a great joy to return to this collection of fascinating essays and vivid reviews after 40+ years of attending and performing in concerts and collecting books, Lps, and CDs.
David Cairns (b. 1926) was educated at Winchester and Oxford (where he read history, 1945–8) and had a year's study (1950–51) at Princeton. In 1950, with Stephen Gray, he founded the Chelsea Opera Group and in 1983 he established an orchestra, the Thorington Players. He has held various appointments as music critic, notably for the Spectator (1958–62), the Financial Times (1962–7), the New Statesman (1967–70) and later the Sunday Times. During the years 1967–72 Cairns worked for Philips Records, taking part in the planning of several substantial recordings, among them works by Mozart, Berlioz and Tippett. These composers, above all Berlioz, are at the centre of his interests; he contributed an introduction and notes to a translation of Berlioz's Les soirées de l'orchestre in 1963 as well as translating and editing his memoirs (London, 1969, 2/1977). In 1972 he was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship for further research on Berlioz towards a substantial biography. This appears in two volumes, Berlioz, i: The Making of an Artist, 1803–1832 (London, 1989) and Berlioz, ii: Servitude and Greatness, 1832–1869 (London, 1999), and was much praised for its musical and biographical insights as well as the warm, vivid and elegant expression characteristic of his critical writing; it has been described as ‘one of the masterpieces of modern biography – a magnificent piece of synthesising scholarship, fluently readable yet maturely balanced’ (The Sunday Telegraph). A collection of his critical writings was published under the title Responses (London, 1973). He was appointed CBE in 1997.
David Cairns (b. 1926) was educated at Winchester and Oxford (where he read history, 1945–8) and had a year's study (1950–51) at Princeton. In 1950, with Stephen Gray, he founded the Chelsea Opera Group and in 1983 he established an orchestra, the Thorington Players. He has held various appointments as music critic, notably for the Spectator (1958–62), the Financial Times (1962–7), the New Statesman (1967–70) and later the Sunday Times. During the years 1967–72 Cairns worked for Philips Records, taking part in the planning of several substantial recordings, among them works by Mozart, Berlioz and Tippett. These composers, above all Berlioz, are at the centre of his interests; he contributed an introduction and notes to a translation of Berlioz's Les soirées de l'orchestre in 1963 as well as translating and editing his memoirs (London, 1969, 2/1977). In 1972 he was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship for further research on Berlioz towards a substantial biography. This appears in two volumes, Berlioz, i: The Making of an Artist, 1803–1832 (London, 1989) and Berlioz, ii: Servitude and Greatness, 1832–1869 (London, 1999), and was much praised for its musical and biographical insights as well as the warm, vivid and elegant expression characteristic of his critical writing; it has been described as ‘one of the masterpieces of modern biography – a magnificent piece of synthesising scholarship, fluently readable yet maturely balanced’ (The Sunday Telegraph). A collection of his critical writings was published under the title Responses (London, 1973). He was appointed CBE in 1997.
Displaying 1 of 1 review