“The first thing I noticed as I slid into the passenger seat of the yellow cab with my kids crowding into the back was that the radio was switched to WQXR,” writes Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim on Thursday (3/9) at WQXR. “I could hardly help it: I’m a New York Times classical-music critic…. When he moved to turn off the radio I stopped him. ‘Leave it on,’ I said…. ‘Who is your favorite composer?’ he asked… I ventured Beethoven. ‘Too easy,’ he said…. He said he’d been drawn to ‘heavier’ fare recently: Mahler; Bruckner. ‘I have a hard time with Bruckner,’ I confessed…. I tried out the name Nielsen. ‘What I’ve noticed with less well-known composers like Nielsen,’ he said, ‘is that they come and go on the radio. There was a time, a while ago, when they played a lot of Nielsen.’ Did I know Brüll? I was stumped…. ‘His piano music sounds like Beethoven,’ he said. ‘You should listen to it.’ … I asked him if he went to concerts. Not these days, he said. Not with a daughter in college and a son who only just graduated…. He was now working six days a week…. Back in my apartment, I headed for the computer and YouTubed a piano sonata by Ignaz Brüll. It’s beautiful.”
Posted March 10, 2017
