Bostonians love three things above all else: their Red Sox baseball team, the swan boats in the Public Garden, and the Symphony. In this oral history of Boston's world-famous orchestra,
Humphrey Burton hears from players and administrators, concert-goers, broadcasters and critics, as well as from members of the Boston
Brahmins, whose generosity has underpinned the organisation from
1881. The orchestra started life pretty much as a German ensemble, and today - with Seiji Ozawa as music director - it is still America's least
American orchestra.