More radio

I’m part of a long podcast from

href="http://www.radio-allegro.com/">Radio Allegro in

w:st="on">Canada,

interviewed by a very smart and lively guy, Ashley Foot. The

class=SpellE>podcast is called “The Sounds of Summer 2006,” and I’m one

of several people who pick a piece of summer music we love. And, OK, I picked a

piece of autumn music I’d heard in the winter, “Harvest Moon,” the deeply

beautiful Neil Young song (from his ’90s album of that name), as he sings it in

the Jonathan Demme concert film, Heart of Gold. I’ve

href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/02/delight.html">raved about

that film here; it’s not just an unforgettable human and musical document, but

a model example of how to put a musical performance on film. We in classical music

would just about drop dead with joy if we did one quarter as well.

So on the podcast, I talk about

the song, and, bless me, I just about start crying. It’s not just the beauty of

the music, or of the idea behind the song, a deepening love story involving

people who aren’t youthful any more. The people involved are right on the film,

too — Young and his wife, who’s one of the backup singers. At the end of the

performance, he sings “I’m still in love with you/I want to see you dancing.”

And he turns around to look at her, and all the backup singers start smiling,

and I just lose it. You might, too, if you see the film, now available on DVD.

But you can hear the song on the podcast,

and hear my talk about the future of classical music as well. I do a lot of

radio, from time to time, but this session, with someone I’d never known of

before, for an organization I’d never heard of, is one of my happiest radio

experiences.

I start at around an hour and 18 minutes into the

class=SpellE>podcast. You can hear it on the Radio Allegro

href="http://www.radio-allegro.com/">website, or on

href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=eK4NgdMrdyQ&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewPodcast%253Fid%253D157456650%2526partnerId%253D30">

class=SpellE>iTunes. (The iTunes link won’t

work unless you have iTunes on your computer.)