MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewLists abound in A Sound Mind, but now they’re playlists, the accessibility of which makes the proselytizer’s task much easier. Morley’s playlists can leap from genre to genre. They encourage the neophyte to exploration, to assemble personal playlists of his or her own ... A downside is that these sites came into being as conduits for songs, not whole albums, let alone large-scale symphonies, oratorios or operas. One can find them, but they don’t fit neatly onto playlists, or encourage a rock fan toward the kind of extended concentration that extended composition often demands. When opera does appear on Morley’s lists, it’s in the form of scenes, not entire scores ... Morley is a bright writer, and most of his commentary on specific pieces and composers is sophisticated and insightful. But he wallows in overwriting (as in this book’s subtitle), and has a weird predilection for repetition and afterthought ... No editor seems to have been able to temper his enthusiasm ... The book’s organization is similarly scattershot ... Much of this haphazardly assembled book seems to have been triggered by whatever articles and talks and panels and interviews he happens to have been asked to provide or participate in or whichever composers he was able to interview, in print or in public ... Like a playlist, A Sound Mind — filling nearly 600 large pages with smallish print — is maybe meant to be dipped into, not actually read front to back. A pity: Morley is smart if self-involved, but he lacks an overarching structure. Like those in the operas, symphonies and choral masterpieces he slights. Next book, maybe.
