How I learned to love classical music - loudly

"Barb! Nancy! Eugene! Come downstairs and listen to this," cried my father, urgency in his voice. I heard Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor vibrating the walls of our living room. We groaned. It was music lesson time.

My siblings and I knew what would greet us: three chairs situated in the center of the big living room in our house on the cliff overlooking the Mississippi River in South St. Paul, Minn. My father placed four giant stereo speakers in each corner of the room so he could be completely immersed in his beloved classical music.

The speakers were connected to the latest 1960s receiver system with a record-changer turntable so he could play a stack of vinyl records. That way, he didn't have to stop to change records, so we couldn't sneak out of our lesson.

As we sat in the chairs, the enthusiasm on my father's face captivated me. "Listen how Bach repeats the same theme over and over, but in different ways," he said. "Tell me when you hear the theme again." This simple direction to listen for a movement's repetitive theme, and to inform my father when I heard it, became an invaluable lesson that helped me recognize the music inside the music.

My father was fond of Vivaldi. As we listened to The Four Seasons, my father pointed out violin solos. "Do you realize how difficult it is to play that?" he said. As a first-generation German immigrant, my father had us listen to Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik and he spoke in German as he pointed out the different parts.

Every Easter morning, my father played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah at a decibel level suiting the momentous occasion. I just heard a lot of people singing, but my father — not a Mormon or even a strict church-goer — listened in fascination to the entire piece, pointing out the diverse vocal sounds and instruments.

Beethoven's ninth symphony was always played in its entirety, never just in isolated movements. During our lesson, my father pointed out the different instrumental parts ("the French horn! the bassoon! listen to the oboe!"). The seventh symphony blasted at us in high wattage as we sat in the middle of our living room concert hall.

My father gave us history lessons about the composers. I learned how Beethoven was going deaf while composing ("such a tragic life, but look what he produced!"), how Tchaikovsky supposedly drank nasty pond water to end it all, and how Mozart revealed his genius at a young age.

My father particularly loved the piano, and the Steinway baby grand piano he'd played since his childhood was given a place of honor in our living room. Chopin's Nocturnes and Beethoven's Für Elise were played endlessly on the stereo as well as on the piano.

The gentle strands of Chopin were often mixed with rousing pieces by Tchaikovsky. Minnesota Dance Theatre founder Loyce Houlton was a childhood friend of my mother's, and we often heard the Nutcracker Fantasy as we prepared for our annual outing to see the famous ballet.

Before moving to South St. Paul, we'd lived in Falcon Heights, where my father built an ice skating rink in our backyard each year and installed outdoor speakers so he could provide a soundtrack to our recreation. To this day, whenever I hear a waltz by Strauss, I think of backyard skating.

Over time, my sister and brother lost interest, and it was just my father and me who would listen to his classical music in our living-room concert hall. There was something about those music lessons that began to sink into my soul, and as I grew up, I came to value classical music as much as he does.

In 2008, when I was attending graduate school in New York City, I discovered a "Bach at Noon Organ Series" at Grace Church. What keyboard work did I choose to attend? The Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Although I was in the middle of Manhattan, the organist brought me back to my Minnesota living room and my father's enthusiastic lessons. There in the Big Apple, I didn't feel quite so alone.

My father is now in his tenth decade, and when I visit him in his one-bedroom apartment in Edina, he has a small portable radio tuned to Classical MPR. We sit and chat about the pieces we hear, connecting — once again — through music.

Barb Teed is a writer living in Bloomington, Minnesota.

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