Maestros and Their Music, Mauceri

John Mauceri — who has stood on podiums before stories symphonies, operas and ballets around the world — brings a lifetime of experience to bear in this informative and entertaining exploration of his profession. As he traces the lineage of his craft from Felix Mendelssohn to the present day, he shows us how conducting itself is a composition of legacy and tradition, of techniques handed down and more than a trace of ineffable magic.

Weaving musical explanations together with memorable accounts of working alongside masters like Leonard Bernstein and Leopold Stokowski, Mauceri reveals how conductors approach a piece with a combination of personal interpretation, imagination and insight into the composer’s intent. He explores what it takes to communicate solely through gesture — sometimes with hundreds of performers at once — and provides insight into the occasionally glamorous, often challenging life of the itinerant maestro.

Illuminating and instructive, inflected with candor, humor and grace, Maestros and Their Music is the perfect guide to the allure and theater, passion and drudgery, rivalries and relationships of the conducting life.

Over the past five decades, John Mauceri has conducted symphonies, operas, ballets, musicals and film music around the world, serving as music director of multiple opera companies and orchestras all the while. He has more than 70 albums to his name and is the recipient of many major awards. He is the author of Maestros and Their Music: The Art and Alchemy of Conducting and has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Times of London and Huffington Post, among other publications.

Author: John Mauceri
Format: Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Vintage (2018)
ISBN: 9781101973608