I cannot recommend the writing of Jan Swafford highly enough. He is one of the only people who writes about music that is a) a practitioner, b) extremely knowledgeable in an academic way, and c) never falls into the trap of “dancing about architecture.”
On top of all that, he single handedly got me back into classical music (which I flirted with for a while in high school). His almanac The Vintage Guide To Classical Music is one of the most fun and educational reads about music (up there with Last Night A DJ Saved My Life) and his biography of my hero Charles Ives, although it can test your patience (like most biographies of 19th century figures), also emphasizes all the right things.
Aside: Charles Ives is a hero because he a) was a child musical prodigy, taught by his dad, b) blew off music to become an entrepreneur, where he made millions (in 1920 dollars) selling insurance, and c) returned to music to write some of the most complex, progressive, and beautiful music ever, arguably on par with Beethoven and Stravinsky.
