Great artistry makes brilliant performance seem effortless, but what really goes into the making of timeless music? Fortunately, Samuel Antek, who was a first violinist with the acclaimed NBC Symphony Orchestra for 17 years, captured for posterity what it was like to perform under the baton of the legendary Maestro Arturo Toscanini, widely considered the greatest conductor of the mid-20th century. In his musical memoir, Antek shares his keen observations of Toscanini’s singular approach to music making, his unpredictable moods, his passions, his relentless demands on himself and his musicians, and his unwavering dedication to faithfully interpretating composers’ works.Now, Antek’s daughter, former television producer Lucy Antek Johnson, brings this stellar work back into print with this new and expanded edition,

 THIS WAS TOSCANINI: The Maestro, My Father and Me (Brown Books Pub Group; Second Edition, August 17, 2021), making Toscanini’s legacy available to new generations of students, musicians, music historians, and classical music fans.

Samuel Antek, a virtuoso violinist and a conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, takes us behind the scenes during hundreds of rehearsals, concerts, tours and often grueling recording sessions as though we’re actually sitting among the players. We feel the tension and exultation as Toscanini and his musicians strive to reach just the right tone and sonority as they rehearse over and over a particular musical phrase from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the horn solo that opens the Oberon overture, or the fiery Dies Irae of Verdi’s Requiem. Illustrated by Robert Hupka’s iconic candid photographs of Toscanini in action, the reader is witness to Toscanini’s painstaking and often explosive process of making beautiful music. You can practically hear Toscanini taunting his orchestra. “Any asino can conduct – but to make music…eh? Is difficile!”

The unflinching honesty of Antek’s recollections are on every page. As he wrote to his publisher: “I will describe what I have actually seen, felt, and heard Toscanini say. What he asked of us, those of us who made music with him.”

Antek was only 49 when he died at the height of his own musical career, before he had a chance to complete his manuscript. His wife, Alice, and photographer Robert Hupka edited and designed the first edition of the book, which was published to great acclaim in 1963. Over the decades it has been often quoted, used as a reference for teaching and remains the most comprehensive narrative about playing with the maestro.

Johnson’s newly written essays introducing her father’s original chapters highlight his own musical rise from first violinist to conductor and musical director of major American orchestras, while sharing her own reflection of what it was like to grow up with such a gifted father and the impact that Toscanini had on their family and her father’s career, creating a remarkable contemporary look into a unique era in classical music history.