July 15, 2009

"Sex, drugs and baroque and roll"

Greg Mitchell wrote a piece today for The Huffington Post inspired by his experience listening to what he has dubbed "Ludwigstock" – the New York Philharmonic performing Beethoven's Symphony No.7 last night for free in Central Park to a rapt crowd of 100,000 people.

He muses about the future of classical music audiences through anecdotes from his own life:

"In fact, if you had told me two years ago that I would spend the morning of my 60th birthday – and the evening of my 25th wedding anniversary – with Ludwig van Beethoven, I would have laughed, or perhaps played a chord of "Wild Thing" on my guitar. After all, until that time, I did not know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto, an oboe and a bassoon. So how did this former rock 'n roll writer/editor become obsessed with Beethoven?"

Read the article here.

What about you? When and why did you develop a love of classical music?

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