Mahler, Messiaen and DNA: The Guardian review of Orfeo
Very often, this novel makes you want to scurry to CD player or iPod to listen along. In that infectious enthusiasm, Orfeo is the equivalent in fiction of Alex Ross’s history of 20th-century music, The Rest Is Noise. … Powers supplies a galloping finale that is sweet, funny, sad and haunting all at once. … formidably intelligent and ecstatically noisy….