Haruki Murakami (with Seiji Ozawa): Absolutely on Music

There's a clear parallel to be drawn between this book and Bill Moyers and Joseph Cambell's iconic conversation, The Power of Myth.  In each, two respected icons in their fields come together to talk, more or less casually, about a subject in which one of them is only a dabbler.  But the book under treatment here has the added benefit of an auditory layer which made it a singular experience.  Not only did Murakami and Ozawa talk at length and in depth about the nature of orchestral music, sharing marvelous personal anecdotes along the way, but Murakami did the reader the service of noting exactly where in the music they were referencing, down to the second.  This added layer absolutely predicates listening to the recordings in question as they are being discussed, including lengthy pauses where the conversants are simply enjoying the music with you.  When the music reaches a point where one of the two has a comment to offer, reading their transcript has the exact effect that was presumably intended: that of listening with them and hearing their comments in real time.  It's the equivalent of the director's commentary on a DVD track, but for Mahler's first symphony et al.  Having never been a fan of orchestral music before--anything without words has a hard time reaching me--I found a fledgling appreciation for the works mentioned here.  I am entirely likely to let it remain half-fledged, and rely on Ozawa's comments, but for the weeks that I spent with these two visionaries at least, I was a fan.