In 1846, Hector Berlioz, one of the most revolutionary of composers, gave six concerts in Prague, at that time one of the most musically conservative cities in Europe. Debate raged in the journals and coffee-houses over whether Berlioz's compositions could rightly be considered music at all. Eduard Hanslick, aged twenty and destined to become the most influential music critic of his day, was in the midst of the excitement in Prague over Berlioz. As Geoffrey Payzant's documentary narrative tells, Hanslick there and then abandoned his youthful romanticism and adopted the formalistic view of the nature of music that characterised his writings for the remainder of his long working life.