SYMPHONY OF SEDUCTION

"Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love", said Hector Berlioz, and he should know. He didn't just hear the symphony when he fell in love with an Irish actress back in 1827, he wrote it.

What was love like for the people who could really feel that song coming on? SYMPHONY OF SEDUCTION tells of the romantic misadventures, tragedies and occasional triumphs of some of classical music's great composers, and traces the music that emerged as a result.

For the eccentric Erik Satie, love came just once – and even then, not for long. Robert Schumann had to take his future father-in-law to court to win the right to marry. Hector Berlioz planned to murder a two-timing fiancée while dressed in drag, and Richard Wagner turned the temptation of adultery into a stage work that changed the course of music while rupturing his own marriage. Debussy's love triangle, Brahms' love for the wife of his insane mentor – all find expression in works we now consider to be some of the summits of creative achievement.

For the neophyte as well as the more established music lover, SYMPHONY OF SEDUCTION takes what we know about these love-crazed geniuses and adds a garnish of imagined pillow talk to recreate stories that are ultimately stranger than fiction.

Christopher Lawrence is one of Australia's favourite radio personalities with a career spanning more than 40 years of broadcasting, including a decade on ABC Classic FM. As an orchestral and opera recording producer he has been awarded an International Emmy for Performing Arts, three ARIA Awards, a Churchill Fellowship, and the Editors' Choice Award at the Cannes Classical Awards in France. Christopher has written three best-selling books: Swooning, Hymns of the Forefathers and Swing Symphony.