(Applause Books). This provocative collection and major publishing event brings together the critical highlights of the well-known New York cultural critic John Simon. Covering a span of more than three decades, it includes previously published work from New York, The Hudson Review, National Review, Opera News, The New Leader , and other notable publications. This music volume is the most varied and contains both music reviews and essays on opera and classical performances and recordings, even Brazilian music, with CD references, that reflect Simon's most up-to-date views on the topic. A SAMPLE: Simon on Erik Satie: "The preferred word for Satie's music is depouillement, meaning stripping down, sobriety, concision, or bareness. 'The artist does not have the right to dispose needlessly of the hearer's time,' Satie proclaimed. But no one else's bareness, save that of a Greek statue or Renaissance nude, seems so fully, sensuously self-sufficient."