On Music: Essays and Diversions 1963-2003

This collection of essays contains some of the most exciting and original analyses of the Wagner operas from music critic and composer Robin Holloway, who is known for his trenchant style and impassioned thinking. These essays provide sustained, meditative, and illuminating accounts both of the masterpieces of the romantic era and of the classical tradition from which they derive. Holloway persuades listeners that music matters, that there is a real difference between good and bad, great and trivial, and sincere and sentimental, and that one's enjoyment can only be enhanced by the habit of critical study.>