© Columbia University Press
Music at the Limits
November, 2007
Cloth, 344 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-13936-6
$29.95
/ £17.95
"These penetrating discussions of music, performance, culture, and human nature are refreshing, enlightening, and definitely not to be tossed aside as yesterday’s journalism." — Booklist
"This fine collection by one of the most perceptive music critics of the last half-century is highly recommended." — Library Journal
"Engaging in his writing about performances." — Palo Alto Weekly
"[Said] was a thinker of great fervency, and it can make for exciting reading." — Rachel Beckles Willson, Times Higher Education Supplement
"[Said's] pieces will reward rereadings for many years to come." — David Schiff, The Nation
"In this brilliant collection, Edward W. Said focuses the power of his intellect and refined musical sensibilities upon an abundant range of topics, which became the broad reflections of an engaged and passionate critic on the state of music at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The sheer eloquence of Said's writings reminds us that with his untimely death we have lost one of our most distinguished music critics." — Maynard Solomon, The Juilliard School
"In their gutsiness, flair, and sheer intellectual power these writings remind the reader of George Bernard Shaw's work as a music critic. Covering twenty years of Edward W. Said's life, this book embodies a coherent and compelling view of both performance and music history." — Herbert Lindenberger, Stanford University
"This book offers extraordinary insight into the development of Edward W. Said as a music critic. It shows the breadth of his musical knowledge and the strength of his musical and political convictions. Provocative and witty, learned yet often despairing, Said's writings construct a fascinating but critical picture of the music and the musicians of our times." — Lydia Goehr, Columbia University, coeditor of The Don Giovanni Moment: Essays on the Legacy of an Opera
"Haunted by the late Glenn Gould, these are the dazzling encounters of a consummate musician and cultural theorist with everyone musical from Wagner to Boulez, Brendel to Barenboim, Mozart to Strauss. Reading and listening with open eyes and ears and with a deep musical knowledge, Edward W. Said engages provocatively with music in all its forms—live, recorded, talked and written about—and makes brilliant bridges to the other arts but also to the political and the ethical dimensions of life that concerned him so deeply." — Linda Hutcheon, University Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto
"Here is the ardent voice of Edward W. Said, turning his versatile spirit to music, of which he has a profound understanding. Wherever appropriate in his virtuoso intellectual performance, he weaves around his main subject of discussion supporting threads of social, historical, literary, philosophical, and political considerations, creating a grand, unified, visionary whole. Throughout the book, Said's clear, passionate prose resonates with energy and vitality, qualities very much characteristic of this wonderful man who left us too soon." — Radu Lupu, Grammy Award-winning concert pianist