Remembering Goldberg

Albert Goldberg dead at 91. Unbelievable. Here I am, 65 and holding, and it never occurred to me that he, too, was getting older. Starting as a music student in Chicago, I had read Goldberg for more than 40 years.

I also knew him, in a way. I had a wonderful job at Orchestra Hall. When his deadline permitted it, I would seek him out for a short chat on the performance we’d just heard. I watched eagerly at “big” concerts, hoping that it would be he reviewing, rather than the fuddy-duddy Felix Borowski, who was wearily still fighting the Brahms-Wagner war.

Here’s to Albert Goldberg, who could slay a ham, politely, in one short paragraph, who always knew what he was writing about, who did not regard a review as his turn to perform.

FRED GEIFERS, Downey