Description
Book SynopsisBeginning with two turn-of-the-century operas - Frederick Delius' "A Village Romeo and Juliet" and Claude Debussy's "Pellias et Mlisande" - that present humankind as lost in a tangled wood that is at once internal and external, this title develops the theme of wilderness in sociological, psychological, ecological, and even geological terms.
Trade Review"[Demonstrates Mellers'] capacious knowledge of musical sound, the urge to connect it with other social and artistic phenomena, and a striking use of evocative language... [Mellers is] a storyteller concocting a plausible tale in which issues of political power, cultural agency and specific facts about melody, harmony and rhythm are interwoven and dropped into the reader's lap... How gratifying it is that Mellers is still on the scene, exercising his sharp ear, broad learning, uncanny responsiveness and quicksilver imagination." -- Richard Crawford, Times Literary Supplement "Every cultivated musician will profit from reading almost any publication of Mellers whose productivity as author and composer has spanned half a century... If used in conjunction with a substantial library of recorded music, this book will serve as a reference for a course devoted to unjustly neglected work." -- Choice
