Of course, it was only in old age that I began listening to the radio, and when I think back on my musical experiences, I see that the pleasures of broadcast or canned music are not all that significant; they didn’t make me a music lover or, in some areas, even a demi-connoisseur. No, before I began lapping up music all alone in my room, I spent decades attending hundreds of public concerts, operas, festivals, and solemn performances of church music in the “proper,” venerable places—that is, concert halls, theaters, and churches—amid a congregation of like-minded and similarly receptive souls, whose faces were attentive yet lost in contemplation, full of reverent devotion, illuminated from within, in a manner that reflects the beauty of their perceptions, and, for several measures, I paid them as much attention as the music. For decades I haven’t been able to listen tot he final chorus of St. John’s Passion without recalling a performance in the Zurich Concert Hall under the direction of Andreä. Sitting on the chair in front of me was an elderly lady whom I had hardly noticed during the concert. The last chorus had died away, and the congregation was beginning to leave, Volkmar was laying down his baton, and I, too, was taking my leave and preparing to return to the secular world, with feelings of reluctance and regret—something that happens frequently to me on such occasions—when the old lady in front arose slowly, stood there for a moment before leaving, and when she turned her head a little to one side, I could see tear after tear coursing across her cheeks.

from Soul of the Age: Selected Letters of Hermann Hesse, 1891-1962.