"Wow. Kramer succeeds at what is a fantastically difficult task: to seduce readers into a powerful engagement with classical music by portraying in words its complex entanglements with fundamental human drives and social needs. Ranging from J.S. Bach to John Adams, the author shows again and again how classical music participates in the exploration of subjectivity, the conquest of time and mortality, the harmonization of humanity and technology, the cultivation of attention, and the liberation of human energy. Matching some of the most famous descriptive musical prose of the modern era, Kramer uses his extraordinary command of language to treat the material in a manner that could not be more original and stimulating."--Robert Fink, author of Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice