Ah, memories!
Twenty years … how fast
that goes by. Twenty years ago the Mrs. and I were newlyweds. We rented in an affluent
town a spacious apartment for half the mortgage I pay now. We had good friends,
good jobs (despite a little bit of rockiness in my world commuting in and out of
NYC), but most of all, we had MONEY! Why? Well, a Republican was in the White
House, so the economy was doing well, which really helps with the quantity of
my wife’s bonuses, but the real reason is, aside from not being hitched to a money
pit – er, house – we were still childless.
I had two really good
friends at this point (one sadly has since passed away), and I did a lot of
things with them, and with all our spouses. I wasn’t the avid reader I am today
believe it or not. My buddies and I would work out together, hike, go sailing
off the Jersey shore, go to sports bars, pool parties, the whole works. We’d
take the wives out to dinner with no thought of how much $ was in the bank
account. It was a fun and happy time I suppose every couple goes through before
they start chasing that ever-elusive, ever-expensive and ever-burdensome American
Dream.
The one thing I did as a
solo hobby before reading was investigate music. During my decade-long stint as
an ultimately unsuccessful musician I had acquired a 200-CD collection up until
1998 or so, when I realized I was completely bored with the state of current
rock music. Nothing satisfied me. The last two bands I was into back then, the
Screaming Trees and the Presidents of the United States of America, I pretty
much enjoyed, but could find nothing – literally nothing – to follow them up
with.
After a few months I
realized that it might be a neat idea to explore classical music. Take a clean
break from hard rock / heavy metal / grunge / etc. and just listen to Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart et. al. In 1992 I had bought a six-pack of CDs from those
three composers, listened to the music a few times, then stored them away. A
few Christmases later Santa gifted me a ten-pack CD of classical compositions.
I did the same with them. Then, in April of 1998, I pulled them all out and
began listening with attention.
I discovered my local
library had a couple hundred classical CDs available to borrow. This really
fueled my obsession. That first year I borrowed 29 CDs sampling a wide range of
composers and styles. I bought 24 CDs of the ones I enjoyed the most. A dozen
years later I had a collection of a 105 classical music CDs, two-thirds of
which were purchased within those first five years.
Why all this?
Well, because it’s kinda
happening again. This time with records. I’m now up to 33 records, thanks to a
discovery I made yesterday.
Indulge me a little more
background. Twenty years ago I spent some time investigating opera. It didn’t
really stick, but I do have my prejudices. I am not a Verdi aficionado, though both
operas I’ve seen at Lincoln Center were Verdis. I much prefer Wagner. The gold
standard for my record collecting (which is very much like antiquing, as you’ll
see in a moment), is to score all four operas in Wagner’s “ring cycle.” Aside
from that, though, I enjoy Puccini, but the Puccini I enjoy most is Turandot.
My youngest bought me a Brahms and a
Tchaikovsky album for Christmas, so it’s been over a month since I’ve had a new
record to listen to. Yesterday she and the Mrs. decided to head out to a
trendy, artsy little town down here in Texas about 45 minutes away. This town
also had that neat record store which sold classical music albums for a
quarter. I jumped at the opportunity.
But to my frustration and
annoyance that record store let their stock of classics dwindle without resupply.
All that was left from four long rows of plastic wrapped used albums was about
a dozen musty, yellowed (and probably warped) bottom of the barrel
compositions. Ugh. What a letdown.
So I tagged along with
the ladies as they browsed and window-shopped. Patch wanted to find some
antique backing for a shelf in her room where she’s collecting vintage dolls. We
hit a place my oldest, Little One, recommended, and what do you know? Hidden
between all the faded woodworked furniture and rusty gadgets and old plates and
glasses and Life magazines from the 50s was – a nook filled with old
records! True, most were Country, Western, and Country-Western, but there was
some rock – a half-dozen Johnny Winter records – and … classical! The music gods
nodded and a Turandot leaped off the shelf into my arms.
The price was a little
steep for me for philosophical reasons – $16.34 with tax – but the complete
opera was a three-record set. It’s a version of Turandot I’m not familiar with,
being conducted by Erich Leinsdorf with Birgit Nilsson in the lead role (I’m
used to the Pavarotti version). And the cover art is … well … we can avoid
talking about the cover art. The record was pressed in 1960.
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