Jee-Sun Huh wrote:

>Just wondering how you guys started enjoying classical music the way you do
>today.  As for me, I stated playing the violin at age 6 and I was attracted
>to listening to recording that were so perfect compared to my own playing.
>(ones that actually didn't give me a headache) I was naturally drawn to
>violin concertos and others just followed through.  As much as I love
>classical music, it always surprises me that only a few students my age
>(I'm 20) care for classical music.  So that's where my wonder comes from,
>how you guys started.

I was a high school student in the mid 1940s and a college student in the
late 40s and early 50s.  I took my friends' interest in classical music
for granted.  None of us were music students.  Most of us were studying
mathematics, science, or engineering.  Almost everyone (besides me) could
play at least one musical instrument, usually in addition to the piano.
This was the day before the easy availability of recordings, although radio
stations were more likely to play classical music, even if they weren't
"classical music stations".  When I entered the real world, I no longer
encountered acquaintances who were particularly interested in classical
music.

I became interested in classical music as a boy through Wagner who had
set to music some of the myths and legends I liked to read, getting to
Beethoven through the Fifth Symphony, the first notes of which were the
Morse code signal for V(ictory) and hence popular during WWII.  Corny
movies about Schubert and Chopin got me listening to them.  And one thing
led to another....

Walter Meyer