I’m
listening to Anton Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, the New World, a recording
from 1991, the Munich Philharmonic, on utube.
I’m
thinking of the two 32-year periods: the last spanning back to my return from
England, late 1980’s, about when this was recorded, which defines my current
life; and before that, back to the late fifties, when I went off to college at
the University of Arizona, in Tucson, 1956.
Way
back when, this was one of those seminal pieces, that I listened to scores of
times, in the UofA Student Union “listening room”. I would say that modern
classical music was one my major classes at college. Full props to my Mom, she raised me on the
three B’s: Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven.
I could conduct the Fifth by age 11.
I recognized the styles of all the piano and violin virtuosos by the
time I went away to college.
But
college did what it was supposed to do, it opened my eyes to worlds beyond my
worlds. College altered my views in politics
and history, literature and science, but also in music: Copland, Prokovief,
Richard Strauss; and Leonard Bernstein taught the course, who I listened to
every Saturday with his explanatory Children’s Performance by the New York
Symphony.
I
roamed the world for the 60’s-70’s, and 80’s, but always with seasons tickets
to the local Symphony.
Listening
tonight to the 1991 performance takes me back to those youthful days of my 20’s,
the cocky young kid, with a mind-expanded view of the world, and his sure place
within it, empowered by all these wonderful new composers and virtuosi.
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