Boykan (emeritus, music, Brandeis, U.) offers scholarly critique of five well known pieces of music from the Western classical tradition. Among them are voice and piano in dialogue: seven songs from the Winterreise, a recurrent tonality: the meaning of the kiss in Verdi's Otello, resetting the clock the scherzo of Beethoven's Fifth, and the power of every moment: musical continuity in J. S. Bach. The essays are not indexed. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)