Masterpiece of masterpieces …

… I Am Not a Cheese - The Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I am a professional musician, and even without a detailed exploration of the harmonic relationships, the counterpoint, or the vocal nuances, I devoured every page. I know these songs very well, but 90 percent of what Bostridge wrote was completely new to me. Ever the history major, Bostridge explores the time and place — circa 1828 in Vienna, where both Müller and Schubert were working — and the cultural significance of some of the references in the songs: a history of tears (in No. 3 “Frozen Tears”), natural phenomena such as Ignis fatuus (No. 9 “Will-o’-the-Wisp”), and an especially fascinating treatise on the linden tree in German literature — No. 5 “The Linden Tree” being perhaps the most famous song in the cycle. A chapter on “The Crow” explores not only Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings but also the symbolism in Hitchcock’s The Birds. Even as I write, I know this threatens to sound dull, dull, dull, but in Bostridge’s beautiful prose, the entire story comes to life, and I swear I could hear little syphilitic Schubert finishing his famous unfinished symphony in the other room. (As a side note, he was one of the first composers to succeed financially simply as a musician, without patronage, and was quite successful in his day.)