Orchestral Conducting in Nine - teenth Century. Edited by Roberto Illiano and Michela Niccolai. (Speculum Musicae, 23.) Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. [xiv, 441 p. ISBN 9782503552477. i110.] Music examples, illustrations, index.As stated in foreword, the purpose of this volume is to study orchestral direction during period of its greatest transformation, which editors consider phenomenon of early nineteenth century (p. xi). The volume contains eighteen out of twenty-six papers presented at international conference held in La Spezia, Italy, 14-16 July 2011, organized by Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini (Lucca) and Societa dei Concerti della Spezia in collaboration with Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique francaise (Venice) (pp. xiii- xiv).A word on languages: publisher and editors apparently believe that educated reader would have a working knowledge of English, French, and Italian. While lengthy quotes in German have Italian translations in footnotes, French quotes in English and Italian papers or Italian quotes in French papers do not. The footnotes refer freely to works in these languages, normally without translations. Further, book would have been enhanced considerably if editors had insisted that authors provide abstracts of their articles, as required in Journal of American Musicological Society ( JAMS) and Journal of Society for American Music ( JSAM). This would have been particularly helpful for those articles in French, Italian, and Spanish, especially if abstracts were in English, language implied by book's title. (Translations throughout this review are my own.)The papers are divided into five sections. The first four papers concern Conductors and Conducting in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Fiona M. Palmer, in Conductors and Conducting in 19th-Century Britain: The Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1840-1895), describes work of five conductors, Jacob Zeugheer Herrmann, Alfred Mellon, Sir Julius Benedict, Max Bruch, and Charles Halle, in developing role of conductor and raising that orchestra from a gentleman's amateur ensemble to a fully professional one. Naomi Matsumoto, in Michael Costa at Hay - market: The Establishment of Modern Role of 'The Director of Music,' recounts how Costa was able to take on many administrative and musical functions at King's Theater (later Her Majesty's Theater), Haymarket, thereby establishing essential tasks of modern 'Director of Music,' which became indispensable to musical and theatrical achievement of opera as a modern art form (p. 49). Costa's activities at Haymarket (1830- 47) included assuming some of work of impresario, engaging composers and performers, and selection of repertoire, in addition to conducting performances, duties traditionally split between keyboard player and first violinist. Four tables include duties and personnel of King's Theater, a list of concerts Costa conducted between 1830 and 1845 when he moved to Covent Garden, and surviving autograph letters to or from Costa from 1829 through 1884. Etienne Jardin, in Les chefs d'orchestre dans les concerts parisiens de 1794 a 1815 (Conductors in Parisian concerts 1794-1815), found that in that brief period there were many terms for those in charge of instrumental concerts in newspaper announcements-chef, conducteur, directeur, la tete de l'orchestre- and that terms were basically synonymous, sometimes even carrying contradictory meanings. He includes a table of fortyfive musicians designated as dir. in papers, most important being Jean- Jacques Grasset, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Pierre- Nicolas Le Houssaye, and Theodore Lefevre. All were violinists, so presumably directed while playing (pp. 66-67). Jardin admits limitations of his study: there is no identifiable leader for a quarter of concerts held in Paris between 1794 and 1815, and names in his table may be misleading, in that conductors and soloists of major opera houses are not represented. …