How I Myself Became A Classical Music Lover —Sorting Baseball Cards!

When I present preconcert talks, people always come up afterwards and say in one form or another:
“I love classical music. I just wish I understood it better!”

I understand that yearning. Let me amuse you with my own story. The first classical concert I attended found me quickly asleep in pure boredom. I actually remember saying out loud, “Never again!” I said that even though I had already composed my first piano pieces—Wandering and The Lonesome Duck (I kid you not)— in a single day that made me realize my life path. Yet my first experience falling in a love with a piece happened later, during a mundane afternoon sorting baseball cards and chewing a fat wad of Topps bubble gum. 

My mother had bought me Leonard Bernstein’s recording of Beethoven’s 5th and I had Side A repeating automatically.  I liked that first movement a lot. Only it had to get past the slow second movement before the needle lifted and got back to the “good part” —the da-da-da-dum.

Meanwhile I did the important work sorting cards by team and position. Time went by. The record repeated maybe ten times. A strange thing started to happen. I found I was starting to wait not for the energetic first movement, but for a certain moment in the second movement. It grew on me. I stopped sorting cards and lifted the needle to play this part over and over. Click to hear the recording at the exact moment I kept dropping the needle. 

It was the sweetness of those woodwind harmonies! Indescribably sad. I couldn’t figure out why I literally had tears flowing down my face. That Beethoven passage has obsessed me ever since. This first experience turned me on to innumerable others. It launched my listening ‘career.’ 

Have you had a similar experience? Share it here on my blog!

If you’ve enjoyed my talks, it’s because I have spent my life learning to articulate to you why and how music is able to do this. In my Classical Consortium that begins next week, I will open an even deeper emotional universe for all of you. But there’s more to the story. Stay tuned!