Description
Book Synopsis''Exhilarating'' - Sunday Times''Funny and moving'' - Jarvis CockerMusic 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 compe
Trade ReviewAn alternately
funny and moving book about the most important art form on Planet Earth.
Destined to become a classic (pun intended) -- Jarvis Cocker
An
exhilarating shredding of received wisdom,
provocatively casting pop music on the side of the stagnant and conservative – a bit last century – while stressing classical music’s dynamic revolutionary potential … Morley remains a
brilliant conductor – of music, of ideas, of inexplicable flashes of lightning. He knows the score -- Victoria Segal * Sunday Times *
In this
boundary-pushing book, the music journalist charts his increasing immersion in classical music – not as a lurch towards “maturity”, but a recognition of its revolutions and revelations -- Best Music Books of the Year * Sunday Times *
His
passion for centuries of music – both celebrated and obscure –
is infectious * Irish Independent *
