A protégé of Leonard Bernstein and an eminent conductor who has toured and recorded all over the world, John Mauceri helps us reap the joys and pleasures of classical music. 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. Mauceri then 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 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.