The seed was planted

This morning’s (Monday, November 16, 2009) Composer’s Datebook on WXXI, the classical-music radio station in Rochester we listen to, celebrated a concert given in 1900 in Philadelphia.
It prompted the Philadelphia Orchestra, a symphony orchestra comparable to anything in New York City or Boston.
It was probably the Philadelphia Orchestra that began my life-long love of classical music, they and my piano-teacher Mrs. Dager (“DAY-grrr”).
Mrs. Dager was a scion of local society, and also my church organist. She also directed my church’s choir, which I belonged to as a child.
She wanted me to become a Billy Graham pianist with sweeping piano glitz and glorious chords. But I was more attracted to Jerry Lee Lewis.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was giving Children’s Concerts, and Mrs. Dager arranged for my sister and I to attend.
We had front-row seats. It probably wasn’t Ormandy, but it was the Philadelphia Orchestra.
They played Finlandia, The New World Symphony, and probably “Waltz of the Flowers” from Nutcracker. (I remember the harp.)
The seed was planted.
The resonant horn-blasts of Finlandia were in my head for years — even riding bicycle on the wooded paths of Camden County Park.
I got so I could follow 1812 Overture.
My high-school band-director had it on a Mercury LP — unabridged.
And then I happened to attend nearby Houghton College.
I found a hotbed of classical music, especially Bach.
They had a fabulous pipe-organ, 3,153 pipes, and essentially a baroque organ.
I visited the campus two years ago, and told them if they let that organ deteriorate, they weren’t getting another red cent.
After college was Karl Haas’ “Adventures in Good Music;” a syndicated educational classical music program on WXXI.
WXXI always trumpets its own Simon Pontin (“PAHN-tin”) and recently deceased Richard Gladwell, but I’d say it was mainly Karl Haas.
Thanks to him were Stravinsky, Copeland, and Gershwin.
Even Mozart, who I usually abhorred.
So now WXXI is celebrating 35 years on the air.
They’re asking for suggestions for 35 classical hits.
The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. I still recognized it after my stroke.

• “Camden County,” across from Philadelphia, is the county wherein Camden resides in south Jersey. I lived near “Camden County Park” as a child.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (We live in Western New York.)
• WXXI had two venerable classical-music hosts, Simon Pontin and Richard Gladwell. Gladwell died recently, and Pontin retired. Both were English expatriates.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.