Musical memories

I remember very clearly the first time(s) I heard Anton Bruckner's 9th Symphony. Over a weekend in 1983 I was previewing music to play on my radio show at WCWM, so I'd taken a few records (LPs!) back to the dorm room for a listen. When my roommate was gone, I played Bruno Walter's 1959 recording of the symphony. Since LPs only allowed 22 minutes per side (and poor Anton wasn't aware of - or didn't care about! - this fact when he composed it in the late 19th century), the second movement (Scherzo) faded out in the middle at the end of Side 1 and faded back in on Side 2. But what a fade-in ! The following day I had my P.E. class (folk dancing) in the college gym with  a couple of other guys and 40 co-eds. I set up the portable record player and speakers before the class and, before others arrived, I put on the Bruckner to see what it would sound like with the resounding acoustics of the big gym. Well, when the brass kicked in, the place rocked! It was truly thrilling ...

There are few other pieces of music which move me as much as Mahler's Second Symphony does. I imagine I first heard it at the end of 1983 after Tom Field introduced me to Mahler in preparation for a recital given by Maureen Forrester at our college. But I don't remember really falling in love with the piece until the following year when I was in Europe. I had bought a tape of Bruno Walter's recording with the N.Y. Philharmonic and listened to it hundreds of times throughout 1984-85. The first time I heard it live was in summer 1986. My Austrian girlfriend was visiting me that summer, while I was living at a friend's apartment near DC and working with my college roommate in his record stores in Northern Virginia. I somehow found out that Maureen Forrester would be singing the alto solo part with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the Riverbend Music Center on the Ohio River, a good 10 hours from DC. My old VW Rabbit was on its last legs, so if I was going to make it o...