I saw this in Eddie Silva’s SLSO blog. He saw it in Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise blog where it originated. It warms the old cockles on this cold and drizzly day.

I received a lovely note from a friend of a friend, a well-regarded writer in another field. He read my book and has subsequently developed what he calls a “full-blown obsessionâ€? with Messiaen, whom he’d never listened to before. This obsession developed to the point where he did something unprecedented and extreme: he bought tickets to an orchestra concert. Namely, the St. Louis Symphony’s Turangalîla evening, which I praised…. He writes: “I’m not even going to try to describe the effect it had on me, other than to say there are a few cultural encounters that have marked me forever — understanding Cézanne for the first time, my Merce Cunningham epiphany, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth viewings of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai — and the Turangalîla now joins their company.”

Posted on: February 22, 2008, by : Ted