Many a forest has been felled to produce unnecessary books on music, but that is most definitely not the case with this utterly fascinating volume from the ever-reliable Tom Service. It’s difficult to know what to praise first: the fashion in which Service conjures the very different (and often difficult) characters of the conductors involved in the variety of musical odysseys represented here. But it is not just the star names which are illuminated by Service’s lively prose – economical but vivid characterisation of everyone involved is the order of the day here. Also evoked with great skill, inter alia, is the experience of listening to great music, which is of course the raison d’être of the journeys described. But most of all it is the controversial and provocative question of just how great conductors achieve the incandescent results that they achieve with their orchestras which is the centre of the narrative here. How does Simon Rattle work with the Berlin Philharmonic? Or Mariss Jansons with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam? Or how does Claudio Abbado work his wonders every year with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra? Tom Service (who writes about music for the Guardian, and broadcasts on the subject for radio) attempts to supply the answers in this valuable book.

Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras Tom Service Faber, £18.99 hardback, £14.99 ebook