"Orchestras are the World's Greatest Air Guitar": Lileks blogs Berlioz.

Far too few people realize that Berlioz was a splendid writer of prose as well as music. Evenings with the Orchestra is a pleasure no one ought to miss: plenty of musical anecdotes and invective, but also many very odd works of short fiction, even one of science fiction. This in conjunction with my recent Polynesian peroration has inspired me to re-read the book's final offering, "The Adventures of Vincent Wallace in New Zealand", a dementedly lurid story of fleeting love between an Irish musician and a cannibal Maori princess.