From The Guardian: Peter Conrad Reviews Books By Daniel Barenboim And Edward Said

Full review here.

Conrad, a music critic, seems to be saying:  we don’t pay listen to Barenboim because of his philosophy, and we don’t read Said because he used to be a pianist.  Also (it’s personal for Conrad), perhaps many people are reading Said because he’s fashionable at the moment…

Best lines:

“Barenboim, who says that he reads Spinoza in his dressing room during intervals, worries about ‘musical ethics’ and fusses over ‘the moral responsibility of the ear’. I’m not sure that a sense organ can carry such a burden; we don’t ask our penises to possess a conscience.”