Criticism : A profile for American musicology -- How we got into analysis, and how to get out -- A few canonic variations -- Critics and the classics -- Byrd, Tallis, Alfonso Ferrabosco : William Byrd and Elizabethan Catholicism -- Byrd, Tallis, and the art of imitation -- "Write all these down" : notes on a song by Byrd -- The Missa Puer natus est by Thomas Tallis -- An Italian musician in Elizabethan England -- Beethoven : Tovey's Beethoven -- An die ferne Geliebte -- Taking the fifth -- Beethoven's minority -- Opera and concerto : Translating The magic flute -- Wagner : thoughts in season -- Verdi's use of recurring themes -- Two early Verdi operas; two famous teretti -- Reading Don Giovanni -- Mozart's piano concertos and their audience -- Tristan und Isolde : the prelude and the play.