RaveThe Times (UK)... 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 music’s dynamic revolutionary potential, dragging it away from its image of \'porcelain and lace, cake and flowers\' ...Classical adepts, meanwhile, must deal with Morley — often branded \'pretentious\' by those who prefer their music writing without too much actual writing — pinballing between Wagner and Buzzcocks, Mozart and Roxy Music. It’s not the shtick of a down-with-the-kids music teacher, but a writer both in his element and out of it, thrilled at the possibility of new connections, excited to see if he can write about Stravinsky the way he would Hot Chip ... a sprawling medley catching Morley’s thoughts on the page ... Admittedly you can sometimes hear that clock ticking as you unpick the knots in one of Morley’s more looping, digressive sentences, or work out what \'allochthonous\' means when applied to Andrew Lloyd Webber ... Yet at his best, and there’s a lot of that here, Morley remains a brilliant conductor — of music, of ideas, of inexplicable flashes of lightning. He knows the score.
