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A Sound Mind
How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History)
A Sound Mind
How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History)
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Description
Bloomsbury presents A Sound Mind by Paul Morley, read by Paul Morley, Roger May and Olivia Dowd.
An alternately funny and moving book about the most important art form on Planet Earth. Destined to become a classic (pun intended)' Jarvis Cocker
Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all.
Paul Morley had stopped being surprised by modern pop music and found himself retreating into the sounds of artists he loved when, as an emerging music journalist in the 70s, he wrote for NME. But not wishing to give in to dreary nostalgia, endlessly circling back to the bands he wrote about in the past, he went searching for something new, rare and wondrous – and found it in classical music.
A soaring polemic, a grumpy reflection on modern rock, and a fan's love note, A Sound Mind rejects the idea that classical music is establishment; old; a drag. Instead, the book reveals this genre to be the most exciting and varied in music. A Sound Mind is a multi-layered memoir of Morley's shifting musical tastes, but it is also a compelling history of classical music that reveals the genre's rich and often deviant past – and, hopefully, future.
Like a conductor, Morley weaves together timelines and timeframes in an orchestral narrative that declares the transformative and resilient power of classical music from Bach to Shostakovich, Brahms to Birtwistle, Mozart to Cage, travelling from eighteenth century salons to the modern age of Spotify.
Product details
| Published | Oct 01 2020 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 24 hours and 45 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781526620811 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Morley is a bright writer, and most of his commentary on specific pieces and composers is sophisticated and insightful.
The New York Times Book Review
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A thoughtful work full of fresh observations and strong opinions. . . [Morley's] writing strikes just the right note: erudite but edgy, entertaining but enlightening. An excellent guide for anyone interested in expanding their musical horizons.
Library Journal
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Morley delivers many perceptive, tunefully written passages
Publishers Weekly
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An intoxicating journey into classical music. . . [Morley] expertly probes classical composers' agitated minds and collective oeuvres. Adeptly framing observations of pop, rock, and classical music within the context of the industry, Morley also underscores extraordinary changes in our time, highlighting the rapid growth of technology and its impact on music. . . A rich resource for music lovers.
Booklist
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Morley's expansive present-tense prose flows from the loosening of the superego, his id let out to play in a style that's at times neo-gonzo, at others like an inspired hybrid of Mik Cohn and the Julian Cope of Krautrocksampler. I hold him to be one of the great pop writers. You might even call him the Bowie of rock journalism.
Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian on THE AGE OF BOWIE
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Morley remains a brilliant conductor – of music, of ideas, of inexplicable flashes of lightning. He knows the score.
The Sunday Times






















