The composer Robin Holloway has established himself as one of the most penetrating music critics of our day, whose trenchant style and impassioned thinking guide us not only through the works of his contemporaries, but also through the great masterpieces of Western Music. This remarkable collection of essays contains some of the most exciting and original analysis of the Wagner operas available in print. It also brings us sustained, meditative and illuminating accounts of the masterpieces of the romantic era, and of the classical tradition from which they both derive. Whether you are convinced by him or provoked by him, Robin Holloway will persuade you that music matters, that there is a real difference between good and bad, great and trivial, sincere and sentimental, and that our enjoyment can only be enhanced by the habit of critical study. Robin Holloway is well known as a versatile and lyrical composer, teacher and writer, who has written many chamber, orchestral and vocal works. He is a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Professor in the Music Faculty at Cambridge University. As a music critic for The Spectator he has acquired a devoted readership valuing his combination of insight, vision and literary flair.