Submitted by elizabeth anne socolow, Sep 26, 2007 21:47

Dr. Sacks, like Anton Chekov, is first of all a physician, not a musician and not, primarily, a writer. First do no harm is the motto of medical people and as such they are not primarily critics. It is therefore particularly offensive and bizarre to have a nit picking kind of review like this, which instead of celebrating the warmth and the neurological detail provided in Muicophilia, instead looks at what the reviewer considers howlers and insults to his own taste. Ravel himself wished he could retract Bolero, because it reminded him of a kind of annoying insect swarm in its relentless measures, and it is well to notice that he himelf said he thought he was in a state of suspended judgment when he wrote it, a dementia, as Dr. Sacks has it, not dementia. Ravel thought the better of it, but its minimalist and arousing mounting drive on the strings in unison were too popular for him to be able to do away with it once he had loosed it on the world. It is unwise for reviewers to complain about ignorance in their polymath and very learned authors, when there is so much to celebrate in this book of kind heartedness, invention, neurological knowledge and mystery. The frustration of the one armed Paul Wittgenstein, the solicitude of his friends who composed for him, his assertion of a need for control to override the musical notations of his benefactors are indeed altogether understandable and human, and seem to fuel the refusal to be silenced as a performer: surely these views of the situation are closer to the mark of his internal experience than abusive name calling directed at a man who had so much of his deepest expressive self damaged. It is the reviewer who seems insensitive and violent in his dislike and lack of understanding. Such reviewers can always be called to task themselves for insufficient information and for the rudimentary rudeness of debasing a medical man's title. Dr. Sacks. Mr. Ivry. Your editors should exercise a bit of modulation How disagreeable to read this review.

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