Cairns, David (Adam)
Cairns, David (Adam)
Cairns, David (Adam), distinguished English music critic and writer on music; b. Loughton, Essex, June 8, 1926. He was educated at Trinity Coll., Oxford, and was the Jane Eliza Procter Fellow at Princeton Univ. in 1950–51. From 1958 to 1962 he was music critic of the Evening Standard and of the Spectator. After serving as arts ed. of the latter (1961–62), he was asst. music critic of the Financial Times (1962–67) and music critic of the New Statesman (1967–70). From 1968 to 1973 he was classical music program coordinator for Philips Records. He was a freelance music critic from 1973 to 1985. In 1985 he was Distinguished Visiting Prof, at the Univ. of Calif, at Davis. In 1985 he became music critic of the Sunday Times. In 1992 he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, and in 1993 a visiting resident fellow at Merton Coll., Oxford. He was made a Chevalier (1975) and an Officier (1991) of l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, and in 1997 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Cairns is an authority on Berlioz. He tr. Berlioz’s Les Soirées de l’orchestre (1963), ed. and tr. Berlioz’s memoirs (1969; 4th ed., 1990), and publ. a valuable biography of Berlioz (two vols., 1989, 2000). He also publ. Responses: Musical Essays and Reviews (1973).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire