On Wednesday’s (7/15) Huffington Post website, Greg Mitchell, head of Editor and Publisher magazine and onetime reporter for Rolling Stone, writes about a newfound appreciation for Beethoven and classical music. “Last night I joined about 100,000 others in Central Park … to hear the New York Philharmonic perform for free Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 and, to close, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The mixed-age crowd, by all accounts, loved it, and I experienced one of the most astounding large-public-gathering moments of my concert-going career: the enormous audience sat rapt, silent, throughout the quiet second movement of the Beethoven. … Still, was Central Park last night any place for a guy who was executive editor at the legendary Crawdaddy from 1971 to 1979? … To my utter amazement in the past year I have pursued all things Beethoven … I returned to Avery Fisher Hall in New York for the first time in 30 years—and this time no one was smoking pot. I scalped tickets outside Carnegie Hall, not for Dylan but for another brash international superstar, Gustavo Dudamel. … Goodbye Crosby, Stills and Nash—hello Beaux Arts Trio! … Beethoven’s deeply emotional, powerful and spiritual music … has enriched my own life in a profound way. …But younger people, as well, are getting into classical music… Maybe good old sex, drugs and baroque and roll is in our future.”
Posted July 16, 2009
