This critical book is not a list of prize-winners – and much less a catalogue of the great musicians of our time. His project is much more ambitious than simply compiling names and listing their talents, however deserving they might be.

Quarter Notes is a veritable bouquet of roses – thorns and all – that one of the most perceptive music critics of our time has been gathering throughout his career. Having a horror of dogmatism, declares Bernard Gavoty, I have simply sketched in picturesque silhouettes and reported on things I had seen first-hand, ranging from the entertaining, to the significant, to the unforgettable….