In this book the author traces the history of America's oldest symphonic organization down to the beginning of Pierre Boulez's conductorship. Against the background of changing cultural patterns of American life over a century and a quarter, the author examines interactions between the New York Philharmonic and the society in which it functioned. There are colorful personality portraits, often tied to surprising reappraisals of such glamorous Philharmonic stars as Arturo Toscanini (who enjoined other conductors to play every note "as written," but who felt free - as the author documents - to make his own changes to the scores of the masters), Gustav Mahler, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, and the spectacular Leonard Bernstein. The author gives the reader insight into an organization that has helped shape America's musical taste - an organization that has brought its performances to the largest audiences in the annals of symphonic music, yet has often suffered from "the vast, and largely unjustified, inferiority complex that has oppressed American music throughout its history."