I was about ten years old and had my ear pressed against the scratchy cloth cover of the console stereo speaker. My mother had allowed me to turn on the radio, a rare treat, but the volume had to stay at “3″ (out of a possible 20–you get the picture). I listened to the classical station, a choice influenced by my parents’ acquisition of FIFTY GREAT MOMENTS IN MUSIC, an album given away with a qualifying gasoline purchase. Add to that the fact I was starting to study the classical repertoire on the piano and you see a music nerd in the making. I was a product of what’s come to be known as “Middlebrow” culture–the movement of a post-war middle class to expose itself to great books and great music. For many, including my parents, a Great Moment in Music was enough. For me, though, the first taste only gave rise to a ferocious hunger.
On that day I heard the Bach Double for the first time.
I don’t know how to explain to you what that experience meant to me. My Rubicon? The Road Less Taken? The Food of Love? It was truly profound. I heard the Largo and could hardly breathe. I was flooded with sweetness. All I could think of during that experience was that I had to hear it again and again–forever, maybe. As soon as the piece ended I went to my mother and begged to get a recording of the Bach Double Concerto (I had carefully memorized what this magical thing was called) for Christmas.
I don’t remember how close we were to Christmas at that point, but I remember it seemed an eternity away. I was willing to wait, however, as long as it took to finally possess that gorgeous music. I would remind my parents frequently of my desire. Their responses should have tipped me off about the likelihood of getting the record: “We don’t know where to get something like that.” (I suggested Schmitt music in Minneapolis, where my piano teacher bought my sheet music) “It’s probably not available around here.” “You don’t really need that.” Etc.
Looking back I realize my parents were intimidated by the whole classical music milieu. Listening to an album you pick up at the gas station is one thing. Walking into a big music store in the city and asking for a strange record album is another. Needless to say, they didn’t come through. When they told me “We couldn’t get it because it was out of stock,” I knew even then they hadn’t tried and would never try. I gave up on the idea.
Not long after Christmas I went with my parents and my holiday loot to a record store at Brookdale, a new mall not far from our home town. I found an album featuring Robert and Gaby Casadesus playing the Bach Concerto for Two Pianos. I knew this was not the Bach Double, but it cost 99 cents and I had the money. Despite the stern counseling of my mother (“How do you know you’ll like it? Do you even know what that is? You probably won’t listen to it enough to justify spending the money on it.” Etc.) I made the purchase. It was the first record album I ever bought and I almost wore it out. From that point my life filled with recordings, rehearsals, performances, background and foreground of classical music and I never looked back.
Now, 45 years later, I can have whatever music I want whenever I want it from about a thousand different sources. Interestingly, I don’t own (and I never have owned) a recording of the Bach Double. It has become, I guess, my Holy of Holies–that place marking the meaning of existence where you can never go. I listen for it in the ether–a chance broadcast on the radio, a serendipitous performance, the background music at a bookstore. Even posting the link for this blog I only listened to the first few bars of the Largo. Some things are too precious to be consumed, posessed, controlled. Romantic, isn’t it, that I believe I’ll hear this Largo someday as I sail toward heaven.
