Giving up a weekly radio program in 1999 was tough, no matter how necessary for my emotional health. But it gave me the time & opportunity to re-explore classical musics, especially longer forms & masterworks that had survived wars, famines, plagues & despotic governments. Imagine a Jewish conductor performing Mahler in Vienna in 1939. Or an irascible, deaf old genius inscribing a score, "from my heart to your heart." Or a blind streetsinger, part-mystic, part-rascal, singing about "John the Revelator." & making you really think about it.
