Reviews (8)

Steamy stuff
I picked this up at a friend's house, took it home and I must say I really enjoyed it. Clara seems to be a grrl who just can't say no! But a fun girl too. If you like a lot of imaginative sex, spiced up with a bit of BDSM, with a plot with lots of twists and turns I can only recommend this.

Trashy lady in a disjointed trashy book ...
This book it appears to be a compilation of bad dreams coming true. Clara the young and very raunchy employee at an art gallery not only has trouble keeping her fingers off her own body but probably has never learned to say the word noto anybody.She has an email relationship with a Mr X who seems to be watching her every move and giving her advice on how to loosen up a little and enjoy life. Boy was that bad advice, if anything, Clara should maybe like tighten up a little and shed

probably enjoy sex a lot more.That was maybe why I didn't like the book since I got the distinct impression that Clara, although she follows the compulsory moves and acts, really never let her hair down ...Oh well if you are into it then this book is probably enjoyable for you...

Trashy lady in a disjointed trashy book ...
This book it appears to be a compilation of bad dreams coming true. Clara the young and very raunchy employee at an art gallery not only has trouble keeping her fingers off her own body but probably has never learned to say the word no to anybody.

She has n e-,ail relationship with Mr X who seems to be watching her every move and giving her advice on how to loosen up a little and enjoy life. Boy was that bad advice if anything Clara should maybe like tighten up a little and shed probably enjoy sex a lot more.

That was maybe why I didn't like the book since I got the distinct impression that Clara, although she follows the compulsory moves and acts, really never let her hair down ...

Reviews (317)

Auido Version: Great book, great reader, but abridged . . .
I really enjoyed this book. Not only is Eco a master of language and story-telling, he is a master of suspense as well. I spent the entire time I listened to this book on the edge of my proverbial seat.
Tim Curry, the actor from Clue, does an amazing job reading the book. Bot only does he handle the different languages, but he conveys the mood and tempo of the book while remaining intelligible.
In the end, however, I spent much of the book wondering what I was missing. I dislike abridged works for that feeling. In this version's favor, the story line maintained its cohesiveness, as far as I could tell, unlike most of the other abridgemens I have read.

Excellent story read by excellent reader
Tim Curry is fabuluous reading Foucault's Pendulum, and his voice is beautiful and the nuances are perfect.

The story is an incredible one: in short, what if you created a fantastic out-of-thin-air conspiracy theory - and GOT IT RIGHT?Not only that, but EVERYTHING you know is suspect, and the world is under secret domination.....

That is the basis for this story, and it is a fantastic one.Umberto Eco has weaved in little bits and pieces of everything, including mysticism, word processors, the Druids, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Masons, and so much, much more.

The story is fantastic to listen to, and if the book is as big and ponderous as some say, perhaps you would enjoy listening to Tim Curry's (abridged) reading of it instead.I recommend it.

This book reminds me of the book "The Illuminati" by Larry Burkett, and of the 1997 movie "Conspiracy Theory" with Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.I've read the former, but have not seen the latter - but the story themes parellel Umberto's Foucault's Pendulum in many ways.

Reviews (225)

I have seen the Fnords!
This book truly plays with your head......big time!
Don't be surprised if your brain hops out of your skull, does a dance on the table in front of you and hops back into your skull again, this is perfectly normal!
After reading this work of 'Alleged Fiction' i'm still a bit confused, but love this book anyways.
This book convinced me that being weird is OK.....I happened to realise now that I'm a Discordian at heart
Hail Eris!

Well written
Other reviews address the content, significance, imagination etc.

No one else has mentioned this yet, but I am most impressed with just the in-depth quality of the writing craft itself, once you get past some strange quirks, like the sudden jumps among different first- and third-person perspectives.

Parts of it might read as if they are just "stream of consciousness", but they were certainly not all just streamed outthat way onto the page, without significant work ... when you step back, and look at the assembling/disassembling/re-assembling of so many intricate parts, into a twisted non-Euclidean curved pyramidal whole, the craft and work involved is quite impressive.

Also having "been there" a few times, many years ago, I can say that their vivid verbal portrayals, of some extremely emotional psychedelic hallucinogenic schizoid states, are right on.

(ignoring the actual content of the specific trip, I mean, just focusing on the verbal portrayal of the emotional state, it reads like something out of my own long-ago experiences, except that they are much better writers than I could hope to be, they actually managed to get it written down in words, in a reasonably effective way!)

Plus, so many of the characters etc. are familiar from my youth, it is a huge nostalgia trip for me too, a nice ride through familiar old stomping grounds of my youth. That is, back around then, circa 1972, I was a 12-year old pre-pubescent H.P.Lovecraft freak, Abbie Hoffman freak, science fiction freak, etc., had a crazy mother totally into Atlantis and all that fernando POO, and at the same time also had friends in the neighborhood, who were into Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey Satanism, etc. Consequently I knew a lot more about the Satanic Bible, for instance, than I ever did about any of the Christian/Jewish mis-translations.

So, it's like, the story of my tribe, it's like I could have been a very minor character, in the book. And there are a lot of us wandering around, still dazed & confused out here somewhere at least in the back of our minds .... so I see, this book is for US.

This is a book I SHOULD have read, back then when it was new. But that's OK, I lived it instead... and the book is still a great read, even today, over 30 years later.

Reviews (11)

Impressive, almost inspiring
Will Self's 'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' overflows with (unsurprisingly) dark humor mixed with academic flair.The stories often seem to lack a clear and definitive finishing point, as if one is reading a manuscript of a story half-written.This, of course, may be a purposeful attempt; that by not offering conclusion, Will Self is in essense prodding the reader into personal deliberation over the concepts presented.Unfortunately, if this be the case, these same concepts have seen so much activity in modern psychology that for the author to not thoroughly conclude his own insights leads one not into pondering personal beliefs in the matter, but what the author might have been trying to convey.A fruitless task as Self, undoubtedly, tries to be as enigmatic as possible.

Luckily Self's mastery of language and metaphor, even during points where one might feel unsatisfied with the content, makes this book hard to put down.He easily achieves the daunting task of having a work sopping with verbose floridity while still being both easily readable and completely coherent.The development of his characters and concepts is quite clear and clean, an intimidating feat while having to develop both observations as well as descent into 'madness' on the same pages.Self is able to portray lunacy with impecable flair, often times the feeling of madness transposing itself from prose to reader with every turn of the page.

'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' should be read for it's unequaled portrayals of the subject matter as well as the interesting, albeit fragmentary, social commentary.Positions and answers however, should not be sought here.

one of the most creative authors of our time
Will Self is, hands down, one of the most creative authors of our time - this is indisputable.He is an incredible writer in terms of form and style and unlike so many contemporary authors has an impressive breadth of themes and ideas that speak to modern life with an amazing tone.If you read anything by Self, read this, and then read How the Dead Live.

Reviews (3)

The Horror! THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!
In nine short words: This is the worst book I have ever read. It is awful, simply awful! First of all, it's 800+ pages long, so it takes ages to read. The jokes that are supposed to be rude are outdated and disgusting. The only upside of this is that that's where the word 'Gargantuan' came from, and I don't think we could live without that word.

Fabulous
I was gonna compare this one to Don Quixote to see another reviewer beat me to it! Well I shall anyway.

Both are one of the first examples of novels, both are extremely long, both are successful and funny satires of society (in this case of the 16th century) at large.

The difference is this book is much less philosophical and more slapstick. It has less high concepts and more toilet jokes. But that's what I found great about it! It is much more farcical and is about the furthest you can get away from realism. The author does not try to be consistent in terms of scale (the book - made up of five books - chronicles the life of the giants Gargantua and his son Pantagruel) but that's the point. Every conceivable historical figure and literary work is mocked.

I think this is one of the first postmodern works(!). Rabelais experiments with heaps of different text types, he has certain chapters which are lists of things pertaining to happenings (like insults hurled by two characters at each other - over 100 in all) etc etc. He goes off on tangents, talks about all the topics on earth from scholarship to sign language. And the antics of the characters are hilarious.

Personally I found this just a tad better than Don Quixote (4 stars). Yes, this book is also a tad too long. But it's actually five books and with short chapters on diverse topics, you can just pick it up and read another chapter. The translation is great, using white space and punctuation in a very unique way and highlighting the comic nature of the book. In fact, Urquhart's translation is a masterpiece in itself.

A great, great book to knock down your sense of decency and pompousness.

Editorial Review

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Reviews (49)

Just amazing, absolutly amazing...
First off let me say that Matthew Barlow absolutly kicked the sh*t out of the early Iced Earth material that Randy Shawver sang on, key song being "Stormrider". With that said and out of the way, I truely believe that this album is an absolute essential for any true metal fan.
Possibly one of the few live CD's where the live versions are better than the studio versions. And I think the one song that proves it right from the get-go is "Burning Times". There is far more energy on the live version than on the studio recording off "Something Wicked". All in all I can't go telling you what is good and what sucks, but I put a 10/10 on this CD just f*cking amazing. Do yourself a favor and buy it now.
P.S.- I also own the 3 disc version, a little more expensive but it reall is worth it.

Athens is Alive!!!
Here we have it. We have here, one of the most awesome live albums in metal history. Rock in Rio can't even hold a candle to Alive in Athens, in my opinion. Almost everything about this album is completely mind-blowing. Most of the time, I'd rather listen to a studio version of a song rather than a live version, but not with Alive in Athens.

With Alive in Athens, Iced Earth takes the studio to the audience and multiplies the awesomeness on all kinds of levels. This is the true poster boy of all live albums. There are no mistakes, no breaks, or anything stupid. All there is room for is the pure power of heavy metal. I know Jon Schaffer traditionally doesn't use BC Rich guitars, but he used one well on Alive in Athens.

The guitars have a very heavy crunch sound, as if you're being beaten into the ground with a sledgehammer. The solos stand out more than on the studio albums, even though some parts couldn't be harmonized it's still just as good. The thing I would have changed would have been to take out "Last Laugh" as well as "The Path I Choose," and replace them with something like "Burnt Offerings" and "Consequences," maybe. Dante's Inferno on Alive in Athens easily beats the Burnt Offerings studio version. The sound is so sweet, crushing, heavy, and melodic.

I was glad to hear Barlow do the Night of the Stormrider material, because I wasn't a fan of Greely's vocals at all. Matt totally nails the NOTS material with ease, which brings a smile to my face each time I listen to it. When I first bought the album it was in my CD player for over a few months. Yes, it's that good! This album completely pulverizes any live Iron Maiden or Judas Priest album with ease. This album is worth every penny and should be owned by all heavy metal fans.

Editorial Review

Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Editorial Review

Reviews (2)

Good but not complete
On the plus side, this book contains loads of stuff by Lewis Carroll as well as the two Alice books.Not much is of the same quality, but quite a lot is well worth having.However, be aware that the title is misleading.Quite a lot that Lewis Carroll wrote is not here, as can be seen by doing a search for books by "Carroll, Lewis" and comparing that with the contents.It includes some material that appeared under his real name or pseudonyms other than Lewis Carroll, but few will grumble at that.Although all the wonderful illustrations by Tenniel for the Alice books are here (albeit not always clearly reproduced), no other illustrations are included.For some works, such as The Hunting of the Snark, the illustrations commissioned by Carroll are excellent and their omission is a serious drawback.However, for all lovers of the Alice books who want to read more by the author, this is a fair and inexpensive starting point.

Reviews (1)

Editorial Review

Reader beware: the photographs in Cheeses of the World are so gorgeous, you might be tempted to eat the page. If, however, you and the book survive that first delirious onslaught of full color Camemberts, Bries and Parmesans, there's plenty of food for thought to keep you entertained (if slightly hungry). Here is the complete history of some two hundred cheeses from thirty-seven different countries. Starting with antiquity, the book explores the evolution of cheese, how it developed and diversified, and how it is made--both the traditional and industrial methods of production.

Reviews (26)

One of the best books I have ever read!
This book, to me, resembles Derek Bickerton's "Language and Species" in providing a very thought-provoking -- and necessary -- supplement to the knowledge we have gained from studying Darwinian, biological evolution.

Bickerton provides a very reasonable and plausible outline for the evolution of language, an extremely (!) important trait of our species.

Hayek provides a very good, if speculative, overview of human cultural evolution.His first key concept is: "Between Instinct and Reason," which may seem paradoxical.(I thought we always had to CHOOSE between instinct and reason!?)

But Hayek makes it all very clear.In historical terms, our instincts came first, driven by biological evolution.Then cultural evolution took over, and provided us with culture and traditions.We moved from being hunter-gatherers to being post-agricultural, LARGE societies.Various rules evolved: private property, contracts, money, honesty, etc.They were not created by some God or some Supreme Philosophy: like Topsy, they "just growed."

As a result of our civilization, our culture, and our traditions, the faculty of human reason developed.So we can draw a little progress line:

Instinct--> culture and tradition -->Reason

Note carefully that, on this account, reason grew out of culture and tradition, and is DEPENDENT ON THEM.

The "fatal conceit" discussed in this book is getting the whole picture backwards, and bravely announcing that, from here on out, culture and tradition will depend on reason!Slavedrivers from Hitler to Stalin loved this idea: we can re-invent the world tomorrow, because REASON has given us a new blueprint!

Students of history are only too aware of the horrifying results.

This book belongs in the library of every thinking man, alongside Ludwig von Mises' "Human Action."

Highest possible recommmendation!!

The fatal conceit demonstrated...
One reader here has found Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" to be lacking in concrete examples. This reader, however, would suggest eBay as the perfect example of the "spontaneous extended human order" which Hayek equates with the market economy.The network of human contacts evolving from this enterprise would surely give even the most humane socialist planner indigestion.

And "humane" is not always in humanity's best interest, as I was reminded in re-reading this book. I recalled a conversation I had with Danish friend who spurned my suggestion that he might be more successful pursuing a career in the U.S."Oh, no," he exclaimed."I couldn't live there.Nobody would know where I was."

This is a "problem" that would probably never occur to an American!In Denmark, however, the bureaucracy always knows where you are-and is authorized to act upon you.

The chilling consequences of having a planner's recording eye on every economic transaction-the very tyranny Hayek has equated with socialism--came home to me during a stay in Denmark a couple years ago.I had, during a previous stay, opened a bank account in central Copenhagen, and was exempted from the requirement of a Civil Registry number on the account, since I wasn't a Danish resident.On the second trip, however, I rented an apartment outside the city and transferred my funds to an outlying branch-little suspecting.When I went to withdraw money from the ATM machine a week or so later, I got a message that my account was "locked."

I borrowed money to get through the weekend, and got an explanation on Monday:Since I had no Civil Registry number on the account, the bank could not permit a withdrawal.My earlier exemption hadn't been transferred with my funds.

Again, I was exempted as a temporary resident, but I felt I had stepped behind the Iron Curtain.And well, I might have, since the Civil Registry number is mandatory for virtually every transaction a Dane enters into.When he moves-even two blocks, if it's to a different police precinct--he must register with the local police, who then have access to his health records in case of accident or injury.

The point of this account is to suggest that a little bit of socialism is like a little bit of pregnancy.The fruits are inevitable.

Charming little Denmark, the innocuous welfare state, has probably come closest of the Western European nations to being a Marxist paradise--small enough to enforce regulation of the minutest detail of personal life downward from its unicameral legislature.

It's regrettable that Ole Hasselbalch's "The Silent War" [Danish "Den stille krig"], published in 2001, is not translated into English.The subtitle is: Soviet propaganda operations against Denmark during the Cold War..."

After the Berlin Wall came down, plans for a pending East Bloc occupation of Denmark were found in the STASI archives in East Germany. Hasselbalch, a professor of business law, details the close cooperation between Danish government agencies and their Warsaw Pact counterparts.

Since this revelation stirred no appreciable reaction among the Danes, one might add an appropriate term to Hayek's list of nouns modified by "social"-- sedation.

Reviews (30)

Intresting but Very Difficult Logic:Genius or Garbage
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus is a 90 page book composed of relatively simple sentences. So what is the big deal, right? Well this book has been construed both as a work of absolute genius and total garbage and the reasons why are manifold.This book is not in anyway casual reading and will certainly require more time to read than any other 90 page book with under 200 words per page that you have come across even if you read it as a tour de force.The question: is any of it worth reading at all?

I started reading this book with the belief that I was going to be reading something revolutionary.Its formula of noting each single paragraph idea or concept into a numeric scheme in which integers mark each major concept and integers followed by decimal points marks sub-points certainly appeals to the logical minded and reminds us of the dewey decimal system if not the bible.Further the concise sentences that formulate each paragraph of the text requires the reader not to read the words as words but as logical actions. Here is where it all gets too tricky for its attempted efficiency.The terms used were often confused, switched and were never solidly defined.This makes deciphering meaning next to impossible. Each statement on its face vale seems rational but when read a second time it is apparent that the book is written like a list of Zen Koans and when read together they obfuscate each other to complete unintelligibility.Yes, this work is more confusing than the Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East.

However, I will say that it is enigmatic in its confusion.

This work, the only work Wittgenstein published in his lifetime, was even denounced by it author in his later life.This book is incredibly complicated and though many claim it to be chock full of brilliance I think it is both too Spartan in its style and too confused to provide a practical system.II think if the author shoes to beef up this work and preface it with definition of terms and a flowchart of the logical problems or something it could have been a far more successful work.As Will Durrant said "It is the philosophical mind that requires the most time to mature" and I believe this statement fits the Tractatus well:It is certain that the author was a genius but the work is sophomoric in it conception. So go on an struggle with this if you mustbut be warned that the system it develops is flawed and nearly impossible to follow.

Second Most Important Work of Philosophy in 20th Century
The `Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' by Ludwig Wittgenstein is easily the second most important philosophical work of the twentieth century, the most important being Wittgenstein's second major work, the `Philosophical Investigations'. I must have an especially large case of hubris today to pretend that I can criticize such an important and dense work. This very short book is by far the best example of Ezra Pound's statement that the quality of a work (of literature) is based on the amount of meaning the author can pack into the fewest words. Every one of the sparse sentences in this book is pregnant with meaning.

Wittgenstein's influence, unlike the Existentialists such as Nietzsche and Kierkegard is primarily through his influence of other philosophers such as the Vienna circle of the 1920s and Bertrand Russell, who did the introduction to the English translation of the book. So why would a non-philosopher have any interest in reading this book? When I am taught physics, I do not read Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg. When I am taught German, I don't read Goethe or Rilke, at least not until I start studying German literature. So why do people always read the philosophers' original works when they study philosophy? The answer to this question is probably in an understanding of the nature of philosophical discourse itself, and this is at the root of Wittgenstein's doctrines in both his Tractatus and his Investigations.

One of the primary tasks of modern academic philosophy, the task very much defined by Wittgenstein's works, is to distinguish between various types of discourse. The easiest to understand is statements of fact, most clearly represented by the results of scientific research. As I write these words, it occurs to me that scientific discourse may in fact not be the easiest to understand when you include discussions of the nature of theories and explanation. So, for the purposes of this discussion, lets just use Natural History as the paradigm of factual discourse. This is the sort of thing Charles Darwin did on his voyages on the Beagle. He simply described flora and fauna and suggested new scientific names for newly discovered species.

A really difficult area is talk about art, the study of which is Aesthetics. As aesthetics is not nearly as important as science, few high powered philosophers have spent much time on the subject. Oddly, it is extremely relevant to my writing these little reviews, as I am making aesthetic judgments, even when I am writing about cookbooks, whose subject is pretty objective.

Another clearly defined realm of discourse is morality. The study of this discourse is Ethics. This is largely the study of right behavior and good behavior and the difference between right and good. Without going into details, let me assure you, good reader, that right and wrong are NOT simply what a society says it is.

The wishes of a society are more properly studied by Political Science. We can use a little sounder political science in our popular conversations to help us sort out the properly political issues from those that are more properly Ethical or Religious. While there are pretty good criteria for identifying right from wrong, the absence of such criteria is what characterizes religious discourse and beliefs.

A religious conviction, by its nature, is pure and simple faith. There are simply no scientific, moral, or even aesthetic criteria that can determine whether Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Judaism is better. A telling fact is that all of these religions make virtually identical moral statements. This is the basis of the great wisdom of our founding fathers when they separated church and state. Politics and Religion simply do not mix. This is not to say that people with strong religious beliefs will not tend to hold certain political beliefs such as the wrongness of abortion. The problem is that they cannot use religious statements to support the political position that leads to laws against abortion. They can use other arguments, but saying that God believes in the rights of the fetus simply doesn't cut the mustard. This is a philosophical finding determined by analysis, not observation or reference to sacred documents.

As an aside, it is important to note that there is an enormous amount of philosophical method which can and should be taught to non-philosophers in college and even in high school. Starting with Aristotle, the workhorse of philosophical discourse has been logic. In most colleges, the Philosophy faculty, not the Mathematics faculty, teaches Logic. Detecting inconsistencies is the bread and butter of philosophical analysis.

Analysis of language is the kind of thing Wittgenstein taught two generations of philosophers to do with his two great works. Oddly enough, while the Tractatus is purely a work of some of the most insightful philosophy done in the Western tradition, the similarity between its findings and some of the tenants of Zen Buddhism is striking. It was the study of this connection that helped get me into a Ph.D. program in Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. This apparent similarity is another important reason to make the effort to read this book.

One can easily be struck by the great difference in the doctrines of the Tractatus and the Investigations, written about 25 years later while Wittgenstein was a professor of philosophy at Cambridge. And yet, Wittgenstein himself said that next to the Investigations, the `picture' of language described in the Tractatus is a reasonable `next best' theory. In fact, even though I have been out of touch with philosophy of science for several decades, I would not be one bit surprised if contemporary philosophers of science and mathematics were not still going to the Tractatus and other Wittgenstein writings from the 1920s to look for inspiration. Unfortunately, the Tractatus is just too lean to provide tools to analyze Moral, Aesthetic, Political, and Religious discourse.

This book is too short and too important for an educated person not to at least take a crack at understanding its insights.

Reviews (4)

Quite excellent all around
This is a truly fascinating CD.Perhaps it doesn't have the greatest balance in terms of pieces, but that certainly shouldn't put you off at all.

The opening piece (the title track if you want to be "pop") is a truly sublime Lisztian work - you'll find none of the fire and virtuosity that you may have come to expect from him.Seems rather ironic, that a piece written by one of the most "aggressive" composers for another one of the most "aggressive" composers is really quite sublime - no Wagner tubas either.

However, that piece provides about 1/15 of the music presented on this album.The other two pieces, by Berg and Webern respectively, are very good ways to "get into" these two composers.We like to associated them with dry, cold, inaccessible serialism, an exceptionally unfair label on both the composers and the style.We, of course, forget that Berg actually had a very post-Romantic sound to his music (he found the "right" set of 12-tones, perhaps?).These pieces, however, are truly quite accessible, while still providing a fair representation about what these composers are all about.Personally, I prefer the Webern - I'm quite drawn to how he compresses everything into the bare essentials, and yet maintains every ounce of expressivity.

Naturally, Kronos Quartet plays these pieces brilliantly.And equally naturally, the recording quality is top notch.This is definitely worth a ... investment.

Fantastic !
This is possibly this most beautifull CD ever recorded by theKronos Quartet.Who said that Berg or Webern were writing obscur or difficult music ? Actually i did, but certainly not when listening to this fabulous breathtaking, harmonius and moving interpretation.

Less Liszt
Don't be misled by the title selection into presuming that this CDcontains a collection of romantic compositions by Liszt or others whocomposed in a similar vein. At the Grave of Richard Wagner comprises twominutes and forty-seven seconds of the thirty-two minutes and twenty-eightseconds on the recording.The balance consists of Alban Berg's StringQuartet, Op. 3 (19:03) and Anton Webern's Five Pieces, Op. 5 (10:38). Therfore, if twelve-tone compositions are not something for which you havea fondness, unless you have a burning desire to acquire the Lisztcomposition, you might want to pass on this recording.