Jee-Sun Huh wrote:

>Just wondering how you guys started enjoying classical music the way you
>do today.

Spent most of childhood in Coolidge, Arizona except for 5 years in Phoenix.
Began violin at age 5; had a few classical recordings (78 RPM) at home:
Beethoven's 5th, Brahms's E-flat Clarinet Sonata (Benny Goodman--remind
me to tell you a story about my experience with that set sometime!),
Romeo & Juliet Overture-Fantasie (Tchaikovsky), Chopin's A-flat Polonaise,
Grainger's Country Gardens, Music of Victor Herbert, Tubby the Tuba, and
later Finlandia, Schubert's Unfinished, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and
Mozartiana, one or two Caruso recordings, and some Fritz Kreisler.  Watched
Liberace every week.  Nothing very systematic.  Played in Orchestras from
5th grade on.  Mother took me to Phoenix Symphony concerts and also to New
York Philharmonic tour to Phoenix (Mitropoulos).  Saw Szigeti, remembered
my teacher playing the Bruch G Minor, also Piston's Incredible Flutist (I
know why I remembered that, because of the cheering part!).  None of this
had too much conscious impact at the time.  Went to music camp after 8th
grade.

Started to get seriously interested in composers and composing around age
16.  Bought 9 Beethoven Symphonies cond.  Toscanini ($3.98 special offer
for joing the "RCA Victor Society of Great Music.") That started my record
buying--those were good times for classical music on record!  Also learned
most of the late Beethoven quartets in the Budapest recordings while
in high school, as well as a lot of symphonic music.  Beethoven's 9th
(Toscanini) had a tremendous impact on me and was probably the thing that
influenced me to major in music.  So no matter what you say about
Toscanini, he did me some good!

I was a Jekyll-Hyde type.  Hyde liked Elvis and Fats Domino mostly, and
rock and roll in general.  I still do--not the stuff now so much, but the
old stuff.  The good stuff.  I think it helped me to understand that the
life-force exists in ANY good music, not just classical.  I would never put
it on the same level as classical though.

You know, in those days classical music was more respected even by people
who didn't listen to it, I think.  That was when people who didn't have
class perhaps aspired to it.  Now the attitude seems more to be "ignorant
and proud of it."

Chris Bonds