A Sound Mind: How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History)

A Sound Mind: How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History) by Paul Morley

This is a book that must be skimmed. Morley's style is extremely verbose and jumps all over the place. He was in to Manchester "pop" music, especially Joy Division. He wrote extensively about it. Later he was asked to join a class to learn how to compose classical music. He got very into classical - and treated it like he treated pop. He has the greatest appreciation for experimental contemporary classical. There are significant sections of the book devoted to interviews with modern composers and performers. He also covers the modern people in context of their predecessors. John Cage is perhaps the most mentioned. Though some of the "bigs" like Mozart and Debussy have their roles to play. He does try to fit them in with the context of their time. His tastes in classical are similar to those with "pop" music. He tends to shun the most popular and prefers the more experimental and obscure that means something to him personally.