David Cairns (writer)

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David Cairns (writer) - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Adam Cairns CBE (born 8 June 1926, Loughton, Essex) is a British journalist, non-fiction writer and musician. He is a leading authority on the life of Berlioz.^[1]

Biography

He is the son of the distinguished neurosurgeon, Sir Hugh Cairns.

He co-founded the Chelsea Opera Group (COG) in 1950, together with Stephen Gray.^[2] Their first concert was a concert performance in Oxford of Mozart's Don Giovanni under the baton of a 22-year-old Colin Davis.^[2] Cairns and Davis went on to form a partnership to champion the music of Berlioz.^[3] During the early 1960s, Davis conducted the COG in concert performances of several of Berlioz's large-scale works, including La Damnation de Faust, Roméo et Juliette, Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini.^[4] Cairns became classical programme coordinator for Philips Records between 1967 and 1972 (in the London division of Phonogram), when Davis released his ground-breaking cycle of Berlioz recordings for the label (with sleeve notes by Cairns).^[3]

His translation of Berlioz's autobiography (Mémoires) was first published by Gollancz in the United Kingdom in 1969.^[5]

His work in journalism has spanned a number of high-profile newspapers and magazines. He was chief music critic of the Sunday Times from 1983 to 1992, having earlier been music critic and arts editor of The Spectator. Other publications for which he has been a music critic include the Evening Standard, Financial Times and New Statesman.^[1] Before becoming a music journalist, he worked in the House of Commons Library.

His two-volume biography of Berlioz: Berlioz: The Making of an Artist 1803–1832 and Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness 1832-1869.^[6] has been widely praised. Reviewing the second volume for Opera magazine, Michael Kennedy described it as "one of the finest of all biographies of a composer" going on to praise his depiction "of Berlioz's lifelong struggle against the philistinism of Parisian musical life", and proclaims that "he has given Berlioz the literary memorial he deserves".^[7] The books won several major awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Society's Music award, the Yorkshire Post 'Book of the Year', the British Academy's Derek Allen Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, and biography of the year in the Whitbread Book Awards.

In 1983, he founded the Thorington Players,^[1] a London-based orchestra that he conducted regularly in St Mary's Church, Putney, and at St. John's, Smith Square.

In his book Mozart and his Operas, published in 2006 by University of California Press, Cairns stated part of the appeal of Mozart's music was its simultaneous embodiment of both "the perfection our souls long for and the sensation of our longing".

In 2019, a substantial collection of his essays on the composer was published under the title Discovering Berlioz - Essays, Reviews, Talks.^[3]

Honours

In 1991, the French government named him an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in promoting Hector Berlioz as a key French composer. In 2013, he was elevated to the position of Commandeur. In the UK, he was appointed CBE in the 1997 New Year Honours.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Grove, Cairns, David (Adam)
^ ^a ^b "Chelsea Opera Group: About COG". www.chelseaoperagroup.org.uk. 2001. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c Quinn J (June 2020). "Discovering Berlioz - Essays, Reviews, Talks By David Cairns". www.musicweb-international.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021.
^ "The Hector Berlioz Website - Champions: David Cairns". www.hberlioz.com. 22 October 2014. Archived from the original on 26 April 2021.
^ Rushton J (2001). The music of Berlioz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. xiv. ISBN 9780198167389.
^ Allen Lane - The Penguin Press, London, 1989 / 1999
^ Kennedy, M. Berlioz's literary memorial - Michael Kennedy on the Cairns biography. Opera, January 2000, Vol 51 No 1, p45-47.

Sources

Grove Music Online, Cairns, David (Adam), article by Stanley Sadie.

Chief classical music critics

The Boston Globe

Michael Steinberg (1964–1976)
Richard Dyer (1976–2006)
Jeremy Eichler (2006–2024)

The Daily Telegraph

Campbell Clarke (1855?–1870)
Joseph Bennett (1870–1906)
Robin Legge (1906–1931)
Herbert Hughes (1911–1932)
Richard Capell (1933–1954)
Martin Cooper (1954–1976)
Peter Stadlen (1976–1985)
Michael Kennedy (1986–2005)
Geoffrey Norris (1995–2009)
Ivan Hewett (since 2009)

The Guardian

George Fremantle (1867–1895)
Arthur Johnstone (1896–1904)
Ernest Newman (1905–1906)
Samuel Langford (1906–1927)
Neville Cardus (1927–1940)
Edward Greenfield (1977–1993)
Tom Service (1999–2003)
Andrew Clements (since 2003?)

Los Angeles Times

Isabel Morse Jones (1925–1947)
Albert Goldberg (1947–1965)
Martin Bernheimer (1965–1996)
Mark Swed (since 1996)

The New Yorker

Robert A. Simon (1925–1948)
Winthrop Sargeant (1949–1972)
Andrew Porter (1972–1992)
Paul Griffiths (1992–1996)
Alex Ross (1996–present)

The New York Times

William James Henderson (1887–1902)
Richard Aldrich (1902–1923)
Olin Downes (1924–1955)
Howard Taubman (1955–1960)
Harold C. Schonberg (1960–1980)
Donal Henahan (1980–1991)
Edward Rothstein (1991–1995)
Bernard Holland (1995–2000)
Anthony Tommasini (2000–2021)
Zachary Woolfe (since 2022)

The Observer

Ernest Newman (1919)
Percy Scholes (1920–1925)
A. H. Fox Strangways (1925–1939)
William Glock (1939–1945)
Eric Blom (1949–1953)
Peter Heyworth (1955–1987)
Nicholas Kenyon (1986–1992)
Andrew Porter (1992–1996)
Anthony Holden (2000–2008)
Fiona Maddocks (since 2008)

The Times

James William Davison (1846–1879)
Francis Hueffer (1879–1889)
J A Fuller Maitland (1889–1911)
H. C. Colles (1911–1943)
A. H. Fox Strangways
Frank Howes (1943–1960)
William Mann (1960–1982)
Paul Griffiths (1982–1992)
Richard Morrison (since 1992)

The Washington Post

Paul Hume (1946–1982.)
Joseph McLellan (mid-1970s–1995)
Tim Page (1995–1999, 2001–2008)
Philip Kennicott (1999–2001)
Anne Midgette (2008–2019)
Michael Andor Brodeur (since 2020)

Others

The Baltimore Sun (2000–2019)
- Tim Smith
Chicago Tribune
- George Putnam Upton (1861–1881)
- Frederick Grant Gleason (1884–1889)
Daily News
- George Hogarth (1846–1866)
Evening News
- Mosco Carner (1957–1961)
Evening Standard
- Percy Scholes (1913–1920)
- Barry Millington (2000s)
Financial Times
- Andrew Porter (1953–1972)
- Ronald Crichton (1972–1978)
Frankfurter Zeitung
- Paul Bekker
The Independent
- Bayan Northcott (1986–2009)
- Edward Seckerson (c. 2009–2012)
New York Daily News
- William Zakariasen (1976–1993)
New York Post
- Henry T Finck (1881–1924)
- Olga Samaroff (1926–1928)
San Francisco Examiner
- Michael Walsh (1977–1981)
Saturday Review
- William Barclay Squire (1888–1894)
The Scotsman
- Mary Miller (1992–1998)
Sunday Express
- Ralph Hill (1940s)
The Sunday Telegraph
- John Warrack (1961–1972)
- Michael Kennedy (1989–2005)
The Sydney Morning Herald
- Roger Covell (1960 – late 1990s)

Position abolished

Birmingham Post	Stephen Stratton (1877–1906) Ernest Newman (1906–1919) Eric Blom (1931–1946)

Daily Express	Francis Toye (1922–1925) Arthur Jacobs (1947–1952) Noël Goodwin (1965–1978)

Daily Mail	Richard Capell (1911–1933) Edwin Evans (1933–1945) Ralph Hill (1945–1948)

New Statesman	W. J. Turner (1915–1940) Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1945–1958) David Drew (1959–1967)

San Francisco Chronicle	Alfred Frankenstein (1934–1964) Robert Commanday (1964–1993) Joshua Kosman (1993–2024)

The Sunday Times	Joseph Bennett (1865–1870) Hermann Klein (1881–1901) Ernest Newman (1920–1959) Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1958–1983) David Cairns (1983–1992)

Discontinued

The Morning Chronicle	William Ayrton (1816–1826) George Hogarth (1834–1844) Charles Lewis Gruneisen (1845–1853)

The Morning Post	Howard Glover (1849–1865) Henry Sutherland Edwards Arthur Hervey (1892–1908) Francis Toye (1925–1937)

Neue Freie Presse	Eduard Hanslick (1864–1904) Julius Korngold (1904–1934)

New York Herald Tribune	Henry E Krehbiel (c. 1880–1923) Lawrence Gilman (1923-late 1930s) Virgil Thomson (1940–1954) Paul Lang (1954–1963) Alan Rich (1963–1968)

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