Conrad, a music critic, seems to be saying: we don’t pay listen to Barenboim because of his philosophy, and we don’t read Said because he used to be a pianist. Also (it’s personal for Conrad), perhaps many people are reading Said because he’s fashionable at the moment…
Best lines:
“Barenboim, who says that he reads Spinoza in his dressing room during intervals, worries about ‘musical ethics’ and fusses over ‘the moral responsibility of the ear’. I’m not sure that a sense organ can carry such a burden; we don’t ask our penises to possess a conscience.”
chr1