Musical reference in fiction

[MJWal]

One-question quiz for all you music-loving genre addicts out there:
What novel (or author - but if you guess him right it will be a doddle finding the title) is this: The title is that of a famous piece of music that sets words of an urgent nature, there are references to Berg's Wozzeck and "one of the cloud chamber pieces by the great mid-twentieth century composer, Harry Partch" in the text, there's a madam called Thisbe and the last chapter has a politician musing
"So now, at long last, [X] said to himself, we have a Negro President of the United States. A new epoch in human understanding has arrived.
At least, let's hope so."
This could be the first of a number of glances at musical reference in literature - others might come up with some more fascinating examples.