The other day I was able to add a name to the list of my musical heroes: Ferenc Fricsay (1914 – 1963), a Hungarian conductor whose recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies are considered unsurpassable by people whose knowledge of and love for the music entitle them to hold opinions like that. All I can say for myself is that his conducting of Beethoven gives me the pleasure that I look for from music, in abundance.
The kind of pleasure that I am looking for from music I can get from other sources as well — it’s pleasure the frees me from competitive and selfish impulses. It’s the kind of pleasure that I get eating vanilla ice cream. I can enjoy the ice cream without needing to believe that I am enjoying it better than everyone else, and I feel no need to have all the vanilla ice cream in the world to myself. When Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, I hope He finds me enjoying a vanilla ice cream cone or listening to a recording of a performance by Ferenc Fricsay.
Fricsay was in poor health most of his life and died young. He kept conducting as long as he was physically able, without any apparent diminution of the joy that music gave him.
In YouTube, search for “Ferenc Fricsay Rehearses and Conducts Smetana’s Moldau”.
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