In our “Becoming an Audiophile” series, readers share stories of how they got into the hi-fi hobby. This is the story of how Bill Pauluh became an audiophile.
Wagner: LohengrinIt's always surprised me that Lohengrin, Wagner's most awkward, transitional, and static opera, was, for its first 100 years, his most popular. It didn't help, I suppose, that I began my study of things darkly Teutonic with The Ring and Tristan, working forward and backward from there. In Lohengrin we can hear the last reluctant pullings away from operatic conventionsespecially choralof the first half of the 19th century, and the gropings toward full-blown musikdramaespecially in Act II, scene i.
It was around noon on Sunday, October 16th, 2011, and I was in the lobby of the Denver Marriott Tech Center. Jennifer Atocha broke the news. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore had separated after 27 years of marriage and 16 awesome full-length albums with their band, Sonic Youth:
the
band
that
had
changed
my
life.
Wild, right? This is just the latest of the profundities to explode into my mighty brain as I slouch on the orange couch, staring at stacks of CDs, contemplating life and stuff. It came to me on a lovely Sunday morning. The sun was shining, the birds were cheeping, and I was still high from my band's performance two nights earlier.
