Dimensions
165 x 242 x 55mm
To his sister Berlioz wrote, "I am absorbed continually by the strangeness, the romanticness of my situation." What was continually absorbing Berlioz in 1832 was in fact his passionate pursuit of the actress Harriet Smithson, whom he at last marries at the beginning of the second volume of David Cairns's masterly biography. The pursuit of love, and its defining place in Berlioz's life, is one of the great themes of Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness. It is only one among many brilliantly traced by the author. Cairns describes the genesis of the famous works of Berlioz's maturity - Benvenuto Cellini, the Requiem, Romeo and Juliet, The Damnation of Faust and above all the crowning masterpiece The Trojans. Rarely have the creative processes of a great artist been so amply revealed. Berlioz stands in this volume not simply as a great composer but also as a marvellous conductor. And it is evident, in this book perhaps for the first time, that he was also one of the finest critics and writers about the music of the 19th century.
