The Listener, 8 March 1970

Charles Burney was one of the outstanding personalities of his time: more remarkable, one might say, as a man than as a musician, though this would not mean that his musicianship as an organist, harpsichordist and composer has ever been in doubt. It is rather that his character, his learning and his infectious enthusiasm impressed themselves more strongly on his contemporaries than his purely musical gifts. His tour of France and Italy in 1770 was undertaken in order to collect material for his General History of Music, published a few years later. He was in search of books and manuscripts to add to his collection, and wished to study the condition of music and musicians. He was well equipped for the task: his knowledge, his evident charm of manner, and his gift for establishing easy human relationships bore fruit throughout his long and arduous journey.

It is difficult for us today to realise what it entailed. Having set out from Dover he arrived at Calais ‘without any other accident than the very common one of being intolerably ill during the whole passage’. He travelled mainly by coach, occasionally by post-chaise, often in acute discomfort, staying in hostelries infested with fleas and bugs, crossing the Alps on mule-back even part of the way on foot – in perpetual danger from the elements, from robbers and from rascally or incompetent guides.