There’s a lovely review of my Nocturne book in the US journal First Things, ‘American’s leading journal of religious and public life’. In case you don’t come across it, here’s an excerpt:

‘Tomes is the author of eight books on classical music, and the elegant, perceptive music columns she contributed to The Guardian between 2001 and 2010 are exactly the sort of thing that we mourn when we lament the decline of civilized discourse in arts journalism. …

‘Tomes is an outstanding practitioner of an almost impossible craft: explaining the inner workings of classical music without jargon or academic gobbledygook. … She is able to translate a performer’s technical insights, and even the physical sensation of playing, into lucid, unaffected prose.

‘…You don’t have to be a pianist to follow Tomes’s explanations at the keyboard. Chopin, she explains, declared that “the third finger is a great singer.” So why, she asks, did he specify the use of the little finger in his famous Nocturne op. 9 no. 2 (probably the one piano nocturne that everybody knows)—a finger that is “usually considered weak”? Tomes’s explanation makes it seem entirely logical. “Perhaps it was because the passage is pianissimo, and Chopin wanted the effect of ‘speaking’ rather than singing, so making the little finger move from note to note would ensure a gentler touch and introduce natural articulation into the phrase.” It all makes sense. Better, it sends you back to the music with renewed attention—always a hallmark of good music writing.

‘…Nocturnes, writes Tomes at the end of this wise and civilized book, “stand on the threshold between ‘day mind’ and ‘night mind,’ looking both ways.” We listen, she concludes, “because we feel we are in an enchanted place, and we sense that the music will soon vanish, as dreams do.” ‘   Richard Bratby in First Things, 12 May 2026