TY - JOUR T1 - Book review JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 472 LP - 472 VL - 56 IS - 527 AU - Toby Lipman Y1 - 2006/06/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/56/527/472.abstract N2 - David Cairns Mozart and his Operas Allen Lane 2006 HB, 304 pp, £22.00, 9780713994919 David Cairns is best known as the author of a massive and comprehensive two volume biography of Berlioz, which won the Whitbread Biography Award. For many years he was the chief music critic of the Sunday Times, and is also the most readable translator of Berlioz's memoirs. As he himself remarks in his preface to his latest book, ‘Another book on Mozart and his operas may not be needed. I can only say that I needed to write it …’ For the reader, therefore, the question is whether he or she needs to read it.This is rather a curious book, neither completely biography nor purely a technical analysis of the operas. It is, of course, always a pleasure to read David Cairns' … ER -