With a lifetime of experience, profound knowledge and understanding, and heartwarming appreciation, an internationally celebrated conductor and teacher answers the questions: Why should I listen to classical music? How can I get the most from the listening experience?

A protégé of Leonard Bernstein–his colleague for eighteen years–and an eminent conductor who has toured and recorded all over the world, John Mauceri helps us to reap the joys and pleasures classical music has to offer. Briefly, we learn the way a musical tradition born in ancient Greece, embraced by the Roman Empire, and subsequently nurtured by influences from across the globe, gave shape to the classical music that came to be embraced by cultures from Japan to Bolivia. Then Mauceri examines the music itself, helping us understand what it is we hear when we listen to classical music: how, by a kind of sonic metaphor, it expresses the deepest recesses of human feeling and emotion; how each piece bears the traces of its history; how the concert experience–a unique one each and every time–allows us to discover music anew. Unpretentious, graceful, instructive, this is a book for the aficionado, the novice, and anyone looking to have the love of music fired within them.

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York on September 3, 2019; This Vintage Short by John Mauceri is now available on Kindle.

A Vintage Shorts Original Selection

A dazzling conductor and prodigiously talented composer whose passion for music inspired generations of musicians, Leonard Bernstein is one of the most famous figures in American musical history. Now, acclaimed conductor and musical director John Mauceri, who worked with and learned from Bernstein for eighteen years, gives us an intimate portrait of the beloved maestro. Mauceri warmly recounts delightful stories from his years of world travel and continuous creation alongside ‘Lenny.’  A must-read celebration of the rich and vivacious life of one of the greatest musical minds of our generation.

An ebook short.

A lecture by educator and conductor John Mauceri at Neue Galerie New York.

19 November, 2015

For the Love of Music: A Conductor’s Guide to the Art of Listening

From Publishers Weekly

Classical music is “the epitome of Western art and human expression,” according to this passionate meditation. Grammy Award–winning conductor Mauceri (Maestros and Their Music) takes an impressionistic ramble through the classical canon, celebrating its unique ability to convey narrative drama with extraordinary emotional force despite being a wordless evanescence of “invisible houses made of vibrating air.” In loosely thematic chapters, he sketches basics of music theory, compositional structure (he gives an illuminating discussion of Richard Wagner’s use of leitmotifs, musical phrases associated with characters or events, to orient listeners during his stupefyingly long Ring operas), the electrifying charisma of live acoustic performances with their high-wire displays of physical dexterity married to complex aesthetic decision-making, and the elevating effect of classical music’s suggestion of a harmonious moral order. Writing in graceful, engaging prose, Mauceri weaves in his own experiences of listening and conducting, along with evocative appreciations of favorite pieces. (In Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, a musical portrait of Stalin’s Russia, “the timpani pounds out a repeated series of inflexible and barbaric eighth notes, all of which begin to accelerate, as if we were under the heels of a thousand jackboots.”) Mauceri’s love letter will provoke newbies to give classical a whirl and inspire fans to listen with fresh ears. (Sept.)

Reviewed on : 05/06/2019

For the Love of Music: A Conductor’s Guide to the Art of Listening will be released September 17, 2019.

Preorder your copy

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• IndieBound

Knopf, ISBN 978-0-525-52065-8, Ebook 978-0-525-52066-5

For the Love of Music: A Conductor’s Guide to the Art of Listening

John will be releasing his latest book For the Love of Music: A Conductor’s Guide to the Art of Listening on September 17, 2019

With a lifetime of experience, profound knowledge and understanding, and heartwarming appreciation, an internationally celebrated conductor and teacher answers the questions: Why should I listen to classical music? How can I get the most from the listening experience?

A protégé of Leonard Bernstein–his colleague for eighteen years–and an eminent conductor who has toured and recorded all over the world, John Mauceri helps us to reap the joys and pleasures classical music has to offer. Briefly, we learn the way a musical tradition born in ancient Greece, embraced by the Roman Empire, and subsequently nurtured by influences from across the globe, gave shape to the classical music that came to be embraced by cultures from Japan to Bolivia. Then Mauceri examines the music itself, helping us understand what it is we hear when we listen to classical music: how, by a kind of sonic metaphor, it expresses the deepest recesses of human feeling and emotion; how each piece bears the traces of its history; how the concert experience–a unique one each and every time–allows us to discover music anew. Unpretentious, graceful, instructive, this is a book for the aficionado, the novice, and anyone looking to have the love of music fired within them.

For the Love of Music: A Conductor’s Guide to the Art of Listening will be released September 17, 2019.

Preorder your copy

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• IndieBound

Sony Classical has released Danny Elfman’s violin concerto “Eleven Eleven”. The concerto is performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri  and featuring Sandy Cameron, violin.

The album also includes “The Piano Quartet” performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet featuring Andreas Buschatz, violin · Matthew Hunter, viola · Knut Weber, cello · Markus Groh, piano.

Listen/buy the album here: https://sonyclassical.lnk.to/Elfman_ElevenEleven

The opening movement of his violin concerto “Eleven Eleven” already has a surprise in store with a remarkably complex sound. Initially, a number of sparing lines flow softly into each other, reminiscent of Samuel Barber or the famous late Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. Elfman’s music takes listeners by the hand and draws them deeper and deeper into a fairytale world – and then the virtuoso violin soars to dizzying heights. Only later when bells and low brass come in can a sense of Hollywood pomp be felt.

© 2019 Sony Classical, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Classical Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxt3…

Sony Classical Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonyclassical/

Sony Classical Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sony.classi…

Film composer Danny Elfman releases his first violin concerto ‘Eleven Eleven’.

Listen/buy the album here: https://sonyclassical.lnk.to/Elfman_ElevenEleven

The opening movement of his violin concerto “Eleven Eleven” already has a surprise in store with a remarkably complex sound. Initially, a number of sparing lines flow softly into each other, reminiscent of Samuel Barber or the famous late Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. Elfman’s music takes listeners by the hand and draws them deeper and deeper into a fairytale world – and then the virtuoso violin soars to dizzying heights. Only later when bells and low brass come in can a sense of Hollywood pomp be felt.

Album release: 22.03.2019

© 2019 Sony Classical, a division of Sony Music Entertainment Sony

Classical Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxt3…

Sony Classical Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonyclassical/

Sony Classical Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sony.classi…

The album also includes “The Piano Quartet” performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet featuring Andreas Buschatz, violin · Matthew Hunter, viola · Knut Weber, cello · Markus Groh, piano.

Listen to and buy the album at sonyclassical.com

A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS

JOHN MAUCERI’S MUSICAL CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVENT

The Program

Williams
Exultate Justi from The Empire of the Sun

Rozsa
Music from Ben Hurr (arr. Mauceri)
The Holy Land – Nativity – Alleluia

Waxman
A Christmas Carol (arr. Mauceri)

Williams
Somewhere in My Memory from Home Alone

Silvestri
Polar Express

Elfman
The Nightmare Before Christmas

Williams
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Hedwig – Diagon Alley – Fluffy – Harry’s Wondrous World

Traditional
Christmas Carols (arr. Carmen Dragon)*
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Adeste Fideles
Carols of the Bells
The First Noel

*Christmas Medley No.1