Since I am sort of his successor at the helm of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen, it was extremely interesting for me to know more about this almost forgotten conductor, who was very active and well known in Europe and America (where to he eventually emigrated) after the Second World War, but whose roots went far back in the years before the Russian Revolution. This book is about his Mémoires, put together by his son Georg after his death. Nicolai Malko, born in 1883 (he died in the US in 1961), strongly shaped the musical life of Russia, especially in his “Alma Mater” opera house, the Marinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, where he soon rose as a crucial conductor under the tutelage of the legendary Eduard Napravnik. A student under Rimski Korsakoff and Glazounov, Malko tells us in an elegant language, never putting himself in the center of attention, about his years at the Music Conservatory in Saint Petersburg (with interesting stories about Rimski Korsakoff, Glazounov, Liadov, and other famous Russian composers of the time), his years at the Marinsky Theater (where he even worked with Fokine and Riccardo Drigo), the great influence of Felix Mottl, and the shifting of the musical culture in Russia after the Revolution. And, of course, his early relationship with the young Shostakovich, recognizing his vast talent, but also his singular vanity, and, in general, his contradictions. Not only is this book a precious source of information about those years, but it is also a portrait of a musician without any allure, a conductor deeply rooted in the great tradition of Russian music, always dedicated to quality and art. An inspiring book; I couldn’t stop reading—and learning.