(The Infinite Listener. Reflections and conclusions on music from Nietzsche to the present day) Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Webern, Rilke, Stravinsky, Auden, Schonberg, Ligeti, Lévi-Strauss, Cioran, Jünger, Kandinsky, Jankélévitch, Magris, Cage, Boulez, Huxley, Adorno, Fubini, these are just some of the names assembled together in this book, which seeks above all to bring ideas on the art of music right up to date. Whether in pithy aphoristic flashes or keenly-observed fragments, music here is a matter for mediation and study. The way it interacts with other art forms, questions as to its origins, the way in which time lies at the heart of musical language, decoding it as a cultural symbol, observing the way past masters have made their mark on contemporary composition, understanding the great pieces as a search for reason, but also for the spirit, revealing how hearing and voice go beyond the merely physical, asking why it is that music is embedded within feeling and the extent to which it influences consciousness, there are but some of the themes that go to make The Infinite Listener an invitation to read and, above all else, a call to listen from a place of understanding and freedom.