As for friends of music without a capital F or M, I don’t think I have ever met more refreshingly fervent ones than during a visit to the High School of Music and Art in New York City. To be surrounded by those eager, young, upturned faces while I was listening to and commenting upon the playing of their star pupil blotted out distasteful memories- like a certain incident in Carnegie Hall. It was a sold-out concert and I was standing in a group of rapt devotees listening to music that was ineffably Toscanini when I was shocked out of absorption by a lady who, leaving her orchestra seat, walked by and calmly asked one of us if he would like to take her seat for the Beethoven symphony that was to conclude the program. I imagine he was glad to listen to this, sitting down, but I have wondered since (as I did then) what could have been important enough- what tea-party or shopping expedition- to that worthy season-ticket holder to make her leave Carnegie Hall just before Toscanini and Beethoven. << less