A Clearwater trove of classical recordings awaits a new owner

CLEARWATER

Jack Wickel lives alone in a small apartment at Top of the World in Clearwater. He shares the living room with a stereo phonograph and two cabinets filled with about 200 pristine vinyl recordings, gleaming black discs with grooves no human hands ever touched.

He is 81. A month ago he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What to do with those 200 vinyl records — his life's passion?

Wickel takes an album from his cabinet — it's his favorite opera, Wagner's Ring, the four-part masterwork that is 15 hours long. Wickel's is a recording of the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by the great Karajan. The record was cut by Deutsche Grammophon. It's in a box that contains notes in German and English. It's about 25 years old. The box and notes look new.

He removes the second opera, Die Walküre, his palms lightly touching the edges. He places it on the turntable. He moistens a cloth with an antistatic solution and cleans the record. He takes a small tool and checks the level of the turntable.

Then he gently sets the stylus on the vinyl, and the grooves release the might of the Berlin Philharmonic.

• • •

Years ago, he hurried from selling tools on Long Island to catch the orchestras at Carnegie Hall. His wife, Grace, hurried with him, even though she wasn't a fan of classical. He was always a nervous wreck, afraid of being late. Once he hopped out of the car in stalled traffic and jumped a subway. Grace drove on and met him at the theater.

They're divorced now. But she has been a constant help with his cancer.

He has always attacked every new thing with passion — photography, short-story writing, gourmet food. "You should have seen him," Grace says, "when he got into French cooking."

Wickel taught himself classical music and opera at midlife, after hearing his son play Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and wondering how he'd missed that all his life. When he heard Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, conducted by Riccardo Muti, the music sounded to him like lovemaking. He filled his bookshelves with biographies of composers. He discovered Wagner, the greatest genius — and perhaps the worst human being — of them all.

He bought season tickets to Carnegie Hall.

"Do ladies dress up?" Grace asked. She had a red dress, and hoped no one would notice if she wore it to every concert. The first night, a lady with season tickets sitting beside her complimented her beautiful dress. Grace thought, "She's going to see plenty of that red dress."

Wickel tried to make a music lover of his daughter, Joan. He took her to Carnegie Hall for Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. She piled her hair high, wore her mom's mink. Women at the theater glared at them. They thought Wickel was a sugar daddy. He kind of liked that.

After the concert, he asked his daughter how she liked the music. She shrugged.

• • •

He has 200 gleaming discs, and no one in the family wants them.

He figures he should sell them in one lot — all the recordings in their original jackets. Otherwise, who knows where they might end up? Wickel says practically, "I can't take them with me." He is looking for a buyer who considers Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 an act of love, someone who would never lay a finger on the grooves of Wagner.

His oncologist urged him to try radiation and chemotherapy. Otherwise, his time to hear beautiful music will be short, maybe six months. Wickel called a hospice instead. They gave him pain medication.

Between doses, he feels the fat lady warming up, just below his ribs.