An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music

Writing about music-about what it is and what it means-is akin to describing the act of love. Somehow, the reduction of the experience to an unblushingly detailed exposition of how, where, when, and why who does what to whom, from prelude to resolu­ tion, loses everything in the translation. The other extreme, the one wherein the writer, in desperation, resorts to metaphor (with or without benefit of meter and rhyme), most often results in im­ agery that is banal, vulgar, inane, obscure, pr...