There is something especially satisfying about returning to live in a city you have lived in before. Quite aside from all the old friends to connect with again, there is the purely material benefit that, when construction blocks a road, you can find an alternative route by consulting memory rather than a map.

Our domestic circumstances this time around were very different from those of our first Philadelphia period. Then we had lived in Center City, which was very convenient in view of my frequent long days and evenings at the orchestra offices and hall, which were just two blocks’ walk from our apartment. This time we were attracted by the charming and character-ful neighborhood of Chestnut Hill, on the city's northwest border, which provided Laura with a relatively short commute, while being only about a half-hour's drive, through some beautiful riverside parkland, to a concert or any of the city's gastronomic pleasures.

Our old friend Jonathan Sternberg, a conductor I had reviewed enthusiastically in my time at the Chicago Daily News, and his wife, Ursula, lived in Chestnut Hill, and they found us a beautiful house there that was of reasonable size and not too horrendously expensive. After receiving an urgent phone call from Ursula—our dinner guests in The Hague that evening understandingly left before dessert, realizing that we had to start working on this possibility at once—I flew to Philadelphia as soon as I could to look at the house, and I loved it so much that I felt able to agree on the purchase even before Laura had seen it. She said that she trusted Ursula's taste so completely that, if Ursula thought it was right for us, she was sure she would agree, which proved to be the case.

The Sternbergs were to be a central element in our lives for many years. Jonathan and I would get together frequently to talk about many subjects, but mostly about music. Instinctive rather than intellectual as a musician, and a loyal disciple in stylistic terms of Furtwängler, he has over a very long career and life—he recently celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday—met practically every musician (and every artist in other fields) that one would want to meet.