""From the beginning, it was my intention to infuse some of the passion, allusiveness, and occasional irreverence found in the best writing about jazz and rock into the realm of classical music criticism," Tim Page writes in the preface to this seminal collection of his music and cultural criticism.

In sixty-five perceptive pieces, including some of the work that earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1997, Page offers what he calls "a collection of illumined moments," now gathered in a single volume for the wider audience who will treasure their insight, wit, and wisdom.".

"Page is tremendously versatile, a musical polymath in his interests and understanding. This collection includes both short pieces and longer articles, some about unique souls whom Page knew well and admired, including Glenn Gould and Otto Luening, and others about whom he feels strongly in other ways, among them Vladimir Horowitz.

He takes readers along for closeup glimpses at Midori, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Dawn Upshaw, and Bobby McFerrin, as well as Frank Sinatra and Captain Beefheart, to name just a few."--BOOK JACKET.