Dr. Karl Haas

"Helllllo everyone."

Every night on some NPR station somewhere in America, you could count on hearing the distinguished voice of Dr. Karl Haas introducing his classical music show, "Adventures in Good Music." He died a couple of weeks ago at age 85. I will miss him.

Karl Haas was kind of a throwback among radio personalities - scholarly, German-American, steeped in high culture, kind of a romantic, serious yet fun-loving. There it is: he obviously loved what he was doing and enjoyed sharing it with strangers on the radio.

I don't remember when I first heard his show. It must have been Detroit in the early 70s. WDET was an amazing station back then, with a variety of jazz programs shaped to different periods and styles and tastes. The Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon, with lots of classical programming across the spectrum. And this friendly teaching voice in the early evening talking about his musical topic of the day with intense interest and zest. For the musically illiterate among us, it was an easy way to learn just enough about the history and theory of music to better understand what I already liked and get turned on to stuff I hadn't yet heard. Which is what any good DJ does, yes?

He titled his program about the violin music of Isaac Stern "Leaving No Tone Un-Sterned." My kind of guy. He must have done hundreds of shows over the years, but one of my favorites was his deconstruction of the rondo. Haas could unpack composition so that casual listeners could understand what we were hearing and enjoy it on another level. Turns out the rondo is a club sandwich. Start with bread (major theme), add a slice of turkey (variation), tomato (second variation), and another slice of bread (back to major theme). It's not that complicated, but the form gives Mozart - or any imaginative chef - something to work his particular magic with.

In the winter of 1984, when I was planting trees in South Carolina with a crew of guys from Michigan, sleeping in a little camp trailer parked in the national forest, our boss was a big public radio listener. He owned the trailer and the radio, so we listened to what he listned to. We woke to the Morning Edition theme music every day at 6:00, and we were winding down by the time Karl Haas opened with a Beethoven piano sonata and "Hellllo Everyone" every night at 8:00. Bob Edwards woke us up; Karl Haas tucked us in.