This issue of the Bulletin of the Berlioz Society is dedicated, as of right and with affection and gratitude, to our President, Jacques Barzun, whose 100th birthday, on 30 November, was celebrated by his countless admirers and disciples the world over. We print tributes by a few of them. (As we go to press, Colin Davis, in the midst of rehearsing the London Symphony Orchestra for the Berlioz concert to be given at the Barbican on 12 December — Overture King Lear, Les nuits d’été, Harold in Italy — sends this message: “Hearty congratulations to Jacques Barzun on his 100th birthday. I thank him for his support for all good things and for Hector Berlioz in particular. We have all enjoyed his encouragement and criticism as we strove to make his assessment of Berlioz the view of all music-lovers”.)
The picture on the inside front cover shows Professor Barzun in the world of books, that “wide expanse” which, like “deep-browed Homer”, he “rules as his demesne”. On the front cover we reproduce the photograph of Berlioz by Karl Reutlinger (c.1864) which graced the dust jacket of volume 2 of Berlioz and the Romantic Century; and on the back cover an autograph album-leaf of “Sur les monts” from Benvenuto Cellini, a work dear to Jacques Barzun’s heart and whose establishment in the operatic repertory he regards as the last great cause still remaining to be accomplished.