Tarala, one of my favorite authors, Sinclair Lewis, said
that he was sorry he did not discover classical music until the last few years of his life.
I beat him on that years ago. I used to love Sunday afternoons at my grandparents' house.
While my parents and uncles and aunts played poker in the dining room,
Grandpa George and I sat by the big Philco radio in the parlor and listened to
an hour of Phil Spitalmny and His All-Girl Orchestra playing classical music.
He introduced me to it and it became a lifelong passion of mine.
Years later, while working as a highly-stressed police reporter for the Chicago Tribune,
one night (of many) at Orchestra Hall I heard Fritz Reiner conducting the
Chicago Symphony in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. I had heard it several
times before from other orchestras and conductors, but that evening while sitting
in an upper balcony seat, it was so beautiful, I levitated. In spirit, I soared over
the audience.
The next day I mentioned it to the Tribune's music critic, Claudia Cassidy,
who was one of the toughest in the country, and she was praising it to a janitor
who also had attended the concert. I read her review that day and she said,
"Last night in Orchestra Hall, Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony gave
the definitive reading of the Beethoven Pastoral."
I still feel very lucky about that.