I have the enormous blessing of being born with a passion for music. I remember lying down on the floor with my ears close to the loudspeaker of a new radio my father had bought (I was 9 or 10 years old, and I'm 83 now) absolutely enthralled by some music I never had heard and didn't know what it was. Later I found out it was Brahms 4th. My family was surprised and a little bored by that as they didn't have a drop of musicality in their blood and all wanted to listen to other things. But I couldn't avoid the feeling, the yearning, the love, and whenever I could I would tune the only classical radio station in existence. Recently, thanks to RU-vid, I have been paying more and more attention to Bychkov as I find his conducting very similar to the one I would do if I had had the good fortune of being a conductor instead of a scientist (nothing wrong with it, though). His performances of Chostakovitch symphonies are the best I've heard. Opera is not my first love although I keep "visiting" some of them frequently (recordings, obviously). Curiously, like Bychkov three of my favourite operas are Oneguin, Carmen and (not Traviata, hélas) but Bohéme. And others, of course, like Rosenkavalier (perhaps the opera I've seen and heard more times), Salome, Boris Godunov (Rimsky Korsakov version) and so on, and on....
I met Semyon when he first came to America. He had a lot of powerful support but he hadn't much clothing so I gave him some of my pants and jackets. He's put on some weight since then, but so have I. At that time we were both the same size. I wonder about now.
The white haired fellow (Bing? Dennis?), the way he looks and talks. He reminds me very much of the Washington Post columnist George Will. There must be some similarity in genes between the two men, I dare say.
