Title: Too much story-telling, too little musical analysis
Product review: The biggest flaw of this book, aside from the inclusion of works that don't sound musical at all to this regressive classical music lover, is most of the essays are heavy on background information and very light on musical analysis. The problem with this approach is, first, if you cross-reference what Steinberg writes in the mini-biographies with something like Wikipedia, you'll find lots of disagreements over "facts" about composers' lives and musical developments and also about each piece's specific development, and second, all that background info doesn't help one understand the music better. I wish Steinberg had included more musical analysis, even if that's less than accessible to the non-specialist, and less "chatty" talk.
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