The Berliozians

Behind the fabulous website hberlioz.com, turning 20 this year, is not a team of French musicologists, but rather a pair of retired academics in Edinburgh, Scotland. Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin live in a quite street which traces its origins back to the 18th century. In the living room, above two large computers, hangs a portrait of the French composer, who watches over the couple as they spend their days working to preserve details about his life and music.Tayeb and Austin are now in their early 70s. Their website contains more than 13,000 files in all. There is no other comparably centralized resource about Berlioz—indeed, some of the documents there can be found nowhere else in the world. And the website is popular: in April 2017, it was accessed over 100,000 times. When we met, Austin, a professor emeritus of history, led most of the conversation, while we snacked on Scottish shortbread.