MUSICOPHILIA Tales of Music and the Brain

John Lee’s rich, rolling baritone conveys the empirical enthusiasm and underlying compassion that are the foremost characteristics of neurologist Oliver Sacks’s books. In his latest work, Sacks observes the magical ways patients experience music after undergoing some sort of neurological trauma: an amnesiac who cannot remember anything but Bach fugues, a psychoanalyst bedeviled by musical hallucinations, otherwise mute stroke victims whose only articulation comes through song. Sacks’s penetrating and lyrical insights, as well as his warmth and sense of wonder, are captured by Lee in an inspired reading. The added bonus, particularly given the subject matter, is the deep resonance of Lee’s voice and his gift for a storyteller’s inflection—something akin to music itself. M.O. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 08]