Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras

How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant, but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.

This is the first book to go inside th...