Pittsburghers are justly proud of our sports teams, our neighborhoods, our hospitals and our schools, but now we can take additional pride in our 2018 Grammy awards, one for Best Orchestral Performance and the other for Best Engineered Classical Album, “Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5/​Barber’sAdagio.”

In the February 2018 Issue of the New Criterion, Eric C. Simpson proclaimed that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra “has long been one of America’s better ensembles, an outside challenger to the Big Five” (Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and New York). He cites our “parade of storied leaders, from Fritz Reiner to William Steinberg, Andre Previn, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons and most recently, Manfred Honeck.”

Mr. Simpson uses the December 2017 performance of Haydn’s “The Creation” as an example of the orchestra’s “force of proclamation,” “remarkable versatility,” “nimble playing” and “freshness of sound.” He also praises the ferocity of attack in the opening bars of Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 5,” as well as the heroic melodies of the brass rising over intricately structured chaos in the finale of Beethoven’s fifth symphony.

Mr. Simpson proclaims “The future is bright in Pittsburgh, if only the musical world will give its orchestra a listen.” I agree, 100 percent.

While I have no formal musical training, I know what I like. During the PSO’s February performance of Bruckner’s “Symphony No. 9,” sounds from the augmented brass section almost pulled me out of my chair. The Beethoven “Piano Concerto No. 3” quite convinced me against much evidence to the contrary that beauty still resides in the world.

In my early life as a coal-miner’s daughter from Western Pennsylvania, I never heard a single note from a classical symphony. The closest I came to experiencing transcendent music were the requiem Masses our grade school classes had to sing for every funeral in the parish. I may not have grasped the meaning of the Latin words, but I knew my heart and mind were flying away with the stately musical tones of Gregorian chant.

I vaguely recall my grandmother’s constant humming of a “folk song” that I thought she had brought with her from the old country. Much later, I learned that it was the famous waltz from the operetta “Merry Widow.” Where did she hear it? How did she learn it? My maiden aunt would sometimes lend us her album of Straus waltzes to play on our Victrola while I danced in the kitchen in my imaginary ball gown and long white gloves.

My high school music teacher, Sister Mary Evelyn, taught all of her students enough about melody and rhythm to carry us through our once-yearly operetta, either Victor Herbert’s “The Fortune Teller” (a tale of Roma and soldiers and fainting maidens) or a possibly watered down version of “The Pirates of Penzance.”

Before leaving high school, I was chosen to travel with another lucky girl to a conference for young Catholic women in New York City. Our hosts took us to a performance at Radio City Music Hall where, for the first time, I witnessed music-making by a large, live orchestra. I could not even name all the instruments on stage, but my ears could hear and my eyes could well up with emotion and longing.

As a freshman at Duquesne University, I was fortunate to make friends with students in the Music School. They often took me along for the ride on the Forbes Street trolley as we sang our way to the Syria Mosque. There I learned to listen to the Three B’s — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — just as I learned to cry for the dying Mimi, the abandoned Madame Butterfly and the defiant but glorious Carmen.

When my sons were still young enough to pay attention to my commands, I forced them to take turns accompanying me to regular William Steinberg concerts at the newly opened Heinz Hall. I had to sweeten the experience by allowing each boy to chose a satchel of candy from the drugstore and eat what they could before invariably falling asleep on my shoulder. As adults, they claim not to remember much of the music, but they do consider the enjoyment of classical music as a privilege and a joy.

In her short story “The Wagner Matinee,” Willa Cather describes in perfect pitch the plight of a Boston girl who leaves her musical career to follow her man into a life of unending toil on the plains of Nebraska. After 30 years, she is called back to Boston by a death in the family and is taken to her first symphonic concert in more than three decades.

“Once the concert was over,” recounts the narrator, Aunt Georgina made no effort to rise from her seat. As the stage soon stood “empty as a winter cornfield,” Georgina burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly, “I don’t want to go ... I don’t want to go.”

Cather’s story captures the ache of the human heart for a life beyond the daily drudge. And the uplift that one can experience from a PSO matinee.

Donna Lund, a writer living in Upper St. Clair, is the author of a collection of essays titled “WOE to WIT to WISDOM” (donnajlund@hotmail.com).

First Published: March 31, 2018, 4:00 a.m.