Death of a New York classical contrarian
mainSteve Post, long-time host of WNYC’s Morning Music (long discontinued), has died aged 70.
Steve would intersperse records with idiosyncratic personal comments on issues of the day, most of them morbid. If you remember any of his bon mots, do share below.
“We heard the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar, SIR Edward Elgar, to you.”
The schedule called for reading the weather a few minutes before the hour, but the weather forecast he had was always from the beginning of the hour, so he would say, “And now for the historical weather report.”
Sad news indeed.
He did many amusing things. Just a few memories:
-During the inevitable fund raising drives which support public radio in the US, if the money was not coming in fast enough, he would play the Pachelbel Canon, a piece he detested, over and over. The money poured in just to get him to stop.
-He prided himself on correctly pronouncing performer’s names. Once a listener called him to complain how he had pronounced Nathan Milstein’s name. So in a very exagerated way, Steve told his audience that he was informed that the correct way to pronounce the name was “Nataien Meelsthein”.
-Steve discovered that there was a town in Kansas named Liberal. He loved that and searched for any news, however inconsiquential, from that place so he could broadcast the name Liberal.
-As a skeptic of authority, he would report news of any environmental disaster, such as leaks at nuclear power plants, reporting that authorities said that there was “no danger to the public”, which phrase he would ask his listening audience to repeat with him.