CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter
The IU students are back
in town, and I am remembering when I was one of them, a new freshman… with a
whole new world opening up, including classical music, like The Student Prince, to which I am
listening right now.
At least, that’s what I thought
The Student Prince was when I first
heard it, classical.
I had never really even heard
a “record” when I went off to college, except for the 45s used at the “sock
hops” at school. My family had only one record player, which took only very
long play spoken recordings, because my father was blind, and the Library for
the Blind in Indianapolis sent him “talking books” from time to time. No music.
Mostly Western novels. It was the highlight of an afternoon or evening when
Daddy got out “the record machine,” and all six of us sat around the table,
staring at the slowly rotating record as a story of cowboys battling “savages”
on The Powder River filled our dining room.
We had a radio, but other
than an occasional station that played “popular” music, meaning Bing Crosby and
Frank Sinatra, all the stations featured “hillbilly” music. Yes, that’s what it
was called then. “Country” came along much later. PBS classical music stations
were decades away.
So when my IU roommate,
Tom Cone, brought a “hi-fi” from home, with three records, which included The Student Prince and South Pacific, I thought I was a real classical
college man, listening to “classical music.”
I had never heard of Bach
or Beethoven or Mozart or Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov or Vivaldi. Through
the years, they have inscribed themselves on my list of favorites. [1] I know
what classical music is. I was a history major. I know all about the 18th
century. Well, I know a little about it, enough to date the “classical
music” period up to 1830.
For me, though, the real
classics will always start with Be My
Love and Some Enchanted Evening.
JRMcF
I tweet as yooper1721.
1] Yes, I’m expanding the
usual dates for the “classical” period a bit.
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