The best music of the 20th century "developed our capacity for feeling, deepened our compassion, and furthered our quest for and understanding of what Aristotle called 'the perfect end of life' ". The single greatest crisis of the 20th century was the loss of faith. Noise--and its acceptance as music--was the product of the resulting spiritual confusion and, in its turn, became...
-- from the Foreword by NPR music critic Ted Libbey