What is music, what is its value, and what does it mean? In this exciting book, the philosopher Roger Scruton explores the nature and meaning of music from first principles and gives a fascinating analysis of musical organization, together with a provocative account of contemporary civilization and its discontents. A formidably gifted philosopher, he here combines analytical rigour with a daunting knowledge of the repertoire as a performer and occasional composer, to ask the most fundamental questions about what music is and what our capacity to enjoy it tells us about the human condition. This is a rich and rewarding study, and I doubt whether anyone could have done it better.