Mostly on the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto -- On manic record collectors -- Brahms at Carnegie Hall -- The relationship of writing to music -- What happened in the 1960s -- Eugene Ormandy's Baton -- On the music of Gustav Mahler -- From Chicago blues to Shin'ichi Mori -- The joys of opera -- In a little Swiss town -- "There's no single way to teach. You make it up as you go along."

A deeply personal, intimate conversation about music and writing between the author and his close friend, the former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Haruki Murakami's passion for music runs deep. Before turning his hand to writing, he ran a jazz club in Tokyo, and from The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" to Franz Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage," the aesthetic and emotional power of music permeates every one of his much-loved books. Now, Murakami sits down with his friend, acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa, to talk, over a period of two years, about their shared interest. Transcribed from lengthy conversations about the nature of music and writing, here they discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from record collecting to pop-up orchestras, and much more. An unprecedented glimpse into the minds of the two maestros. Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author. His most notable works include A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994<U+2013>95), Kafka on the Shore (2002), and 1Q84 (2010). Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor. He was music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1969 and of the San Francisco Symphony from 1970 to 1977. He was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 29 years, from 1973 to 2002.