"In sum, Samuel Beckett, Repetition and Modern Music benefits from having been written by someone who is as at home with music studies as he is with literature, as is evident from the wide-ranging references to historical and geographical musics with which the text is sprinkled. In all of this McGrath’s tone is just right and the discussion convincing. At no point is the impression given that literature or music have the upper hand over the other as the centre of discussion or in the author’s priorities...the text moves dynamically from one issue to another, shifting registers easily and profitably between the historical and the contemporary and trading cultural references, ‘high’ and ‘low’, so to speak, from James Bond and Batman to Joyce and Birtwistle, across several aesthetic media including film, pop, and commercial culture, in the playful course of which McGrath offers his clearly distilled and pertinent reflections. This is a study of great erudition that demonstrates admirable facility and awareness of a wide range of related fields, all of which are related to one another very much in the spirit of the topic. The text is supported by a generous number of figures and musical examples and is without doubt an important contribution to the field of Word and Music Studies." - Edward Campbell, Music & Letters