Music Speaks

The key phrase comes toward the end of this zestful and stimulating collection: 'I think of music, of all music, as a teasing of the linguistic areas of the brain.' Much of Albright's writing springs from, around, out of, into, behind, and beyond this beautiful and illuminating thought, which he carries with him through encounters with works by Berlioz, Wagner, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Carter, and others. And 'teasing' -- in the senses of gently mocking, of pulling out, and indeed of titillating -- is also his modus operandi. -- -- Paul Griffiths, noted music critic, author of The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué and The Substance of Things Heard: Writings about Music University of Rochester Press
Criticism so relentlessly intelligent is rarely so buoyant, so ready to charm while it challenges. In staging this genial confabulation between the music of language and the language of music, Daniel Albright once again matches childlike openness with seasoned irony, humor with highmindedness, experience with poetry. -- -- Scott Burnham, Professor of Music, Princeton University, and author of Beethoven Hero .
The insights Albright offers are inextricable from the striking language in which they are expressed. . . . The swerves away from one intriguing example and towards the next are so breathtaking -- and often so beautifully executed -- that it is precisely the line of argument that catches the imagination. . . . The writing is so sparkling that you find yourself wondering whether Albright really talks like this [I hope he does]. . . . Expresses compellingly the irreducible singularity of points of conact between music and language. -- Cormac Newark * MUSIC AND LETTERS *