Musical memories

Recently a friend asked me which music piece IS ME. This is it. This song by Gustav Mahler is one I've long felt an affinity for. If I said I loved it, that would smack of self-love, wouldn't it? It has been close to me since I first heard it, probably around 1983. That is also when I discovered the incredible voice and personality of Maureen Forrester , who gave a song recital at our college in October 1983.  Maureen and I hit it off after her recital in 1983 After that fateful and wonderful meeting, I listened to all the recordings she had made which were readily available (and even ordered rare import copies of Canadian pressings). As so often happened with me, a person helped me discover a certain area of music. Having worked with Bruno Walter as a young woman, she became a renowned expert in the music of Gustav Mahler. But her repertoire spanned four centuries of music and dozens of languages. The afternoon before her recital, I had hosted the "Classical Hour" on...

The music of Rachmaninoff is usually associated with his virtuoso writing for the piano, the composer's instrument of choice and for which he wrote most of his music. You may have seen in the Hollywood movie Shine how David Helfgott went crazy trying to learn "Rock 3" (his father's ambitious nature didn't help), but the concerto that used to bring concert pianists of the 20th century to their knees is now considered standard repertoire for conservatory students.  The gentle giant among the composers wrote other music, too. Among my very favorite of all works for orchestra is his Second Symphony, and the piece I'd like to present today is neither for the piano nor for the orchestra: his Op. 37, the All-Night Vigil or Vespers.  I discovered this piece when the CD recording with Mstislav Rostropovitch and Maureen Forrester was released in 1987. I had the opportunity to ask the Canadian contralto soloist how it was to work with the Russian master musician on this ...

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...