ISBN10: 0007319061, ISBN13: 9780007319060, [publisher: London, England: Fourth Estate, 2010] Hardcover First Edition 1st Printing. Signed. 366 pages. Published in 2010. Retrospective collection of essays. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published simultaneously with the American Edition in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. "Signed By The Author" round white sticker pasted in front. Presents Alex Ross' "Listen To This". Illuminating and adventurous forays on music. Except for one magisterial piece that Ross wrote just for the book, all of the essays previously appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, have been slightly or significantly revised where appropriate, and are thereby the author's final versions. "Utilizes a wide musical scale: Classical music in China; opera as popular art; sketches of Schubert, Bjork, Kiki, and Herb, as a way of understanding the world. Ross offers timeless portraits that probe the ways that the powerful personalities of composers and musicians stamp an inherently abstract medium so that certain notes, songs, or choruses become instantly recognizable as the work of a certain artist. The virtuoso performance comes in the one previously unpublished essay, 'Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues', where Ross isolates three different bass ...