Passing the Baton

The untold story of how the Chicago Symphony Orchestra forged its place among the world’s foremost performing arts institutions through 135 years of change.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra boasts a tradition and staying power that few cultural institutions can rival—a legacy that is tested each time one music director passes the conductor’s baton to another. In this first narrative account of the orchestra’s 135-year history, music critic and historian Phillip Huscher delivers a passionate description of how an upstart ensemble rose to international prominence and established itself as the premier symphony orchestra in the United States. 

With a scholar’s care for detail and a novelist’s attention to drama, Huscher invites us into the tangled machinations behind the success or failure of each chapter in the orchestra’s storied past. We see how legendary directors such as Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, and Riccardo Muti carried the orchestra to new heights of technical perfection and sonic brilliance, but also how others provoked public outcry, caved to insider hostility, or fell to cruel press. The result is a vivid portrait of an orchestra fighting to sustain its identity amid the constant contest between past and present, supporters and critics, and artistic and financial vision.

Woven into this saga are personal stories drawn from newly uncovered documents and interviews with players, conductors, and policymakers about the burden of inheritance, the price of ambition, and the yearning to forge a legacy. Taken together, this is a tale about the power of music—how it can help us navigate our lives and leave a lasting impact on the world around us.