David Cairns - Mozart and His Operas

PENGUIN BOOKS

MOZART AND HIS OPERAS

Anyone wanting to understand how Mozarts operas work need read nothing else Edward Pearce, Daily Telegraph

Cairns is consistently judicious, giving a detailed account of the commission, the composition and the production of each opera: the chapter on Idomeneo, above all, is brilliant and satisfying Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books

We finish the book realizing that Mozart touches upon all that made us civilized, and that he reminds us both of what we are and of what we might be Sir Colin Davis

If you want a book that illuminates the workings of the seven operatic masterpieces within the context of Mozarts life, Cairnss style, wisdom and crucially profound love of his subject are unrivalled like all the best writing on music, the chapter [on Idomeneo] makes you want to hear the opera again as a matter of urgency Richard Wigmore, BBC Music Magazine

In the 250th anniversary of Mozarts birth there will be no shortage of idolatrous coverage of [the operas] but there will be no more stimulating or personal a response than David Cairnss Robert Thicknesse, The Tablet

Over many years Cairns has through his writings contributed greatly to the musical life of this country; his volumes on Hector Berlioz have already achieved classic status He knows well that there is really only one way to write about music and that is con amore, as he does about Mozart The presence of Mozarts other music throughout the bookis a continual joy and strength Hugh Wood, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Cairns writes with such beauty and vividness he possesses powers of description, a way of employing musical terminology in a succinct, natural and undaunting manner, and a constant flair for finding the right illuminating word or phrase, which make his book a constantly absorbing experience a sharp-edged picture emerges of genius at work Conrad Wilson, Herald

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Cairns was chief music critic of the Sunday Times and the Spectator. He has been Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center in Santa Monica and a visiting fellow of Merton College, Oxford. His two-volume biography of Berlioz has established itself as the definitive workon the subject and won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize. He was co-founder of the Chelsea Opera Group and is founder-conductor of the Thorington Players.

DAVID CAIRNS

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published by Allen Lane 2006
Published in Penguin Books 2007
1

Copyright David Cairns, 2006
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

EISBN 9780141904054

in memory of my father, Hugh Cairns (18961952)