Beyond Desire, by Pierre de la Mure. 404 pp. New York: Random House. $3.95
This is one of those panoramic biographies which, written as a romantic novel, gives us a view of a whole period in history, centering around the life of the composer Mendelssohn. Unlike the lives of most artists of his time, there is no hectic struggle with poverty and disease. By contrast with his contemporaries his love affairs are few, long and comparatively happy, the greatest of them being his long-married life with the beautiful Cecile Jeanrenaud.
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