I couldn't help noticing that my regular music contact James Forrest, who so often posted on my regular page as though he were just another of my friends in their late 30s and not born in 1937, was missing lately. He duly listened to my very contemporary music and clearly hated it, so much the worse for him... but was a genuinely wonderful friend for our brief period in touch, and since I have family who recently moved to Jacksonville, I looked forward to telling him that before too long I might pay him a visit in person.
He had not been on media lately, and I feared the worst. It turns out he died a week ago.
James, a well-published critic, was a true man of classical music who'd seen literally every great performer since the late 50s and seemed to remember the details of every concert he'd ever gone to. He had a record collection of something like 20,000 and once seemed to imply that after he went I could take them if I wanted, but I'm more than enough of a pack rat as it is.... He once told me about how pre-internet music collectors would literally send each other cassette tapes of the latest concert radio broadcasts and compare performances over the phone for hours.
I unwittingly sent him a message on the day his longterm partner died about some questions on Verdi, a composer he was much more passionate about than I am. Knowing he had a daughter, I misgendered his partner when I wished him condolences. I only realized I'd done so last week when I was googling him to see if there was any bad news... I was hoping to have a chance to apologize for that, but within an hour of my mistake, on the very day his partner died, he'd gotten back to me with a long list of recording recommendations.
Speaking to him was like talking to the history of classical music itself, and I had many more questions I wanted to ask him about the seemingly thousands of performances he'd seen. Given how well he wrote, I had to imagine he was as read in literature as he was experienced among music, and I begged him to write all his memories up. Sadly he'd always refuse, along with a laugh reaction....
In the world of the arts, there are all sorts of negative role models, but he was a role model of how to be generous to the next generation, and how to approach discussion on fraught topics with humor, insight, and patience (and if you think discussion here is fraught, there is no place more fraught in the world than a music message board). I will miss him, as I'm sure a few hundred other music lovers will.
May his memory be a blessing.
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This is for James Forrest who died last week; a frequent contributor here who ushered for the Chicago Symphony during the Reiner era and saw just about every major performer who came to America since the late 50s. One of the masterful Reiner performances he recalled particularly was of Beethoven 7. I did not share his love for Reiner performances, particularly in the Austro-German classics, but one must bow to the wisdom of such an extraordinary earwitness. Among conductors, his early years were particularly shaped by fantastic live performances of Pierre Monteux, Serge Koussevitzky, Erich Leinsdorf, William Steinberg, Eduard van Beinum, Hans Rosbaud, Igor Markevtich, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, and Artur Rodzinsky. He rued having turned down tickets to a Mitropoulos performance of Shostakovich 10, thinking he had plenty of time to see Mitropoulos again. He recalled details of them all vividly. For someone my age to be able to talk with a person who could recall those golden age giants so well was an extraordinary experience. I begged him to write it all up, but he declined, saying his memories were too dim to write about meaningfully, what must his memory have been like before his dotage?
A good friend whose age difference to me spanned 45 years. You will be missed James. May your memory be a blessing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FwIG5j188s&fbclid=IwAR364ascMJjfgetTa1_4x47PeOs777Lcw3CbSfsr1rrJG6P6IaAFx3cTqwQ
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