“Why is that stupid clown there?”

My grandpa hated everything from MTV. Every artist, every musician, any style. He hated the spectacle of it. He was keen on making me a fan of classical music, and I was happy to listen to whatever he was playing on his stereo, on a wall full of vinyls, mostly preserved, some scratched on the side by cats.

So when the movie Amadeus came out, MTV had this promotional video where scenes from the movie were spliced with several popular musicians. David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Rod Stewart, that nonce from The Who. Were they saying Mozart was like them? Or that they would be as classic as him? I loved the video, because my brothers would spend “spot the musician” while listening to the song.

Me? I liked Mozart’s laugh and I was way too young to see that film, but that’s my childhood history: watching flicks I was too young to see.

Everything I know of classical music was because of my grandpa and he did his best to keep the music I heard distinct. Berlioz, Liszt, Strauss, Beethoven, Bach, all of them. If I was playing solitaire, if I was reading, if I was just idling along or playing by myself with dominoes or boardgames, classical music was there, while he read or played chess. His wall of music is sadly long gone, given away not to family but to a university. I hope they know what they have because I lament what I lost.

-Sam J. Valdés López