Briefly Noted Book Reviews

The result of eight years of reporting, this deft chronicle delves into the story of Bobby Johnson, a sixteen-year-old from New Haven, who, in 2006, was coerced into confessing to a brutal murder he didn't commit. Dawidoff presents portraits of the individuals involved, juxtaposed with research on segregation, the Great Migration, and mass incarceration. Bobby, though widely considered innocent, was convicted because he "fit a false stereotype about how things worked in poor neighborhoods." This musical study charts the rise of Romanticism, in the nineteenth century, as composers came to see individual voice as the key to emotional expression, and began to assert their "existential being through a recognizable, even idiosyncratic musical language." Walsh provides biographical sketches of composers and assessments of their work, and weaves in subplots across decades and geography--the impact of nationalism, the development of program music, the ubiquitous spectre of Beethoven.