Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music

The best music of the 20th century "developed our capacity for feeling, deepened our compassion, and furthered our quest for and understanding of what Aristotle called 'the perfect end of life' ".
— from the Foreword by NPR music critic Ted Libbey

The single greatest crisis of the 20th century was the loss of faith. Noise—and its acceptance as music—was the product of the resulting spiritual confusion and, in its turn, became the further cause of its spread. Likewise, the recovery of modern m...