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

(Paperback)

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'Exhilarating' - Sunday Times 'Funny and moving' - Jarvis Cocker Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all. Paul Morley had stopped being surprised by modern pop music and found himself retreating into the sounds of artists he loved when, as an emerging music journalist in the 70s, he wrote for NME. But not wishing to give in to dreary nostalgia, endlessly circling back to the bands he wrote about in the past, he went searching for something new, rare and wondrous and found it in classical music. A soaring polemic, a grumpy reflection on modern rock, and a fans love note, A Sound Mind rejects the idea that classical music is establishment; old; a drag. Instead, the book reveals this genre to be the most exciting and varied in music. A Sound Mind is a multi-layered memoir of Morleys shifting musical tastes, but it is also a compelling history of classical music that reveals the genres rich and often deviant past and, hopefully, future. Like a conductor, Morley weaves together timelines and timeframes in an orchestral narrative that declares the transformative and resilient power of classical music from Bach to Shostakovich, Brahms to Birtwistle, Mozart to Cage, travelling from eighteenth century salons to the modern age of Spotify. 'His passion for centuries of music both celebrated and obscure is infectious' - Irish Independent

Reviews

An alternately funny and moving book about the most important art form on Planet Earth. Destined to become a classic (pun intended) -- Jarvis Cocker
An exhilarating shredding of received wisdom, provocatively casting pop music on the side of the stagnant and conservative a bit last century while stressing classical musics dynamic revolutionary potential Morley remains a brilliant conductor of music, of ideas, of inexplicable flashes of lightning. He knows the score -- Victoria Segal * Sunday Times *
In this boundary-pushing book, the music journalist charts his increasing immersion in classical music not as a lurch towards maturity, but a recognition of its revolutions and revelations -- Best Music Books of the Year * Sunday Times *
His passion for centuries of music both celebrated and obscure is infectious * Irish Independent *

Author Bio

Writer, critic and broadcaster Paul Morley grew up in Stockport. He was a founding member of the electronic ensemble Art of Noise, collaborated with Grace Jones on her best-selling memoirs and was an artistic advisor for the David Bowie Is exhibition at the V & A. He is the author of a number of books on music as well as two acclaimed memoirs, Nothing and The North.