It's good to read Tim Page's rave report of Strathmore, the Baltimore Symphony's new home in the Washington, DC suburbs. I grew up in DC and know too well the miserable acoustics of the concert hall at Kennedy Center (now improved, but hardly first-rate). It's not so good to read that WETA, the DC-area public radio station, has decided to dump its classical programming in favor of talk. What a thrill it was for me as a kid when WETA or the overnight show on WGMS played some big, mysterious piece I'd only heard rumors about — the Bruckner Sixth, for example, which sounded like a cryptic distress signal on my tiny transistor radio. I hope WETA reconsiders: there's enough talk as there is. Speak up here.
