The conclusion to David Cairns's epic biography of Hector Berlioz has been eagerly awaited ever since volume one, Berlioz: the Making of an Artist appeared in 1989. With an achievement as massive as that highly praised volume part of the tension of waiting for the follow-up involves wondering whether Cairns can capture again the sweep, the vividness and the power of his first book. But he has managed to do exactly that.

Cairns picks up the story at the time of Berlioz's marriage to Harriet Smithson in 1833, with whom he had been obsessively infatuated for so long. It's a mournful story, with her alcoholism, the separation in 1844 and her premature death in 1854, Cairns links the vicissitudes of Berlioz's own life directly with his music. The composition of La Morte d'Ophelie marks the symbolic end of their marriage. "The elegaic significance of this infinitely sad melody would be hard to miss". Cairns writes sensitively and evocatively about Berlioz's music, and one of the central pillars of this second volume is a compelling defence of Berlioz's Trojans (1856), his much-maligned and chopped-about masterpiece. Critics of the day were not kind: "so vulgar, so badly designed and so distorted with impossible modulations that one would take it to be the music of a deaf man;" said one. There were many cartoons, which Cairns reprints, along the lines of "New method of killing cattle to be introduced at all slaughterhouses" in which an ox is pictured felled by having The Trojans played to it through a large tuba. But Cairns convincingly demonstrates just how far ahead of his time Berlioz was, and how heroic was his struggle to have this titanic opera performed and accepted in the teeth of persistent obstacles. It is Cairns' opinion that Berlioz, "like the biblical man, was born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards." His biography follows the tragedies and the triumphs of this larger-than-life individual with a narrative force as strong as a good novel. --Adam Roberts

2006-03-15 The last word on Berlioz?

50 years ago, two ambitious young British musicians became aware of the neglected genius of Berlioz. At that time, only the Symphonie Fantastique, the Carnaval Romain overture and three Faust pieces were performed in concerts. Harold, some excerpts from Romeo and one or two other items were available on 78 recordings. The Requiem, the Trojans, Benvenuto Cellini gathered dust: extravagent eccentricities, probably unperformable and certainly uncommercial. The end of the century saw the climax of the Berlioz revival and of the careers of Sir Colin Davis and David Cairns. The publication of the long-awaited second volume of Cairns' biography coincided with the start of Davis's final great cycle of performances. All Berlioz's works are now widely known. Even his early mass has been rediscovered, performed and recorded. LPs. tapes and now CDs have familiarised us with Berlioz, as with many other neglected composers. But much credit of course goes to Davis, the great interpreter and to Cairns, the untiring propagandist and critic, now the author of the great biography.

It is a remarkable biography. Berlioz at last stands before us as a living man: a son, a husband, a father; a great artist, but also a gentleman, a man of great moral strength. Not only Berlioz:perhaps the greatest revelation of the book is the real Harriet. Only Marie Recio remains elusive.

All Berlioz lovers will buy this book and treasure it. Yet it is not the last word. For Cairns' purpose is to place Berlioz: to put him firmly where he should belong, in a musical tradition which starts with medieval plainsong and is has been represented in the 20th century by Stravinsky, Britten Messiaen... How could he do otherwise? David Cairns is an establishment music critic. And yet to write in Volume One of Berlioz as 'the greatest French composer between Rameau and Debussy'! Is London only the greatest city between Dover and Milton Keynes? Cairns has shown us Berlioz the man. Berlioz the composer is much more: he is still our great contemporary, for no one who has followed can be compared with him.