Alex Ross has written a new essay collection Listen to This. His previous The Rest is Noise is superb.

Is there another music critic that can successfully unpick, for a non-musician, the shared origins of a chacona from the 1600s, the piano riff in Ray Charles Hit the Road Jack, the Crucifixus in Bach’s B-Minor Mass, Bob Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate and the opening lament of Stravinsky’s ballet Orphée.