a rare treasure

Yesterday a 72-year-old man called me a "gem" after a 45 minute conversation about classical composers. He was a concert pianist at the age of 10 (in 1946), but became burned out in his 30s. In the 90s he started up again until he had a stroke, which greatly affected his finger movement.
He encouraged me to practice harder on my cello. (I pulled it out of the closet and have been glancing procrastinatingly at it ever since.)

He feels there are three levels of music appreciation: The current day composers, The "modern" composers (he named Mozart), and the highest level is the three Bs: Beethoven, Bach, and...oh blast...Brahms? He also feels the "top of the mountain" is when you can sit alone in a dark room and listen to an entire opera. I told him I've yet to reach that, hahaha. He said he is still trying.

He feels society going downhill coincides directly with the music of the time. (He is not a lover of rap, haha.) He had high hopes for rock'n'roll, but feels it plateaued with The Climax Blues Band in the 60s, and has only gone down from there.

He told me I am "a rare treasure"; I told him I was just raised by a father who breathes music and a family who sang along to musicals and played "what instrument was that" on every car trip.