Melomaniacs

Stories about musicians and the people who cannot stop listening: a pianist who plays himself mad, a critic who murders a reputation, a woman who hears colours. James Huneker was the first American critic to write seriously about Ibsen, Strauss and Cézanne, and these tales are his fiction from the same nerve. The music is described by a man who could actually hear what he was writing about. Fifty-seven plates by painters including Degas and Munch follow the same thread of music, performance and obsession that runs through Huneker's stories.