phroebe wrote: "I thought you'd be at least somewhat interested in hearing the personal observations of a jaded old unspectacular working stiff musician who has been around the Bach, er, Bloch, a few times, rather than pointing to a noteworthy famous example we've all heard of."
Well, likewise, I know something about this from personal experience, too. Check out http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/memoriam.html on my website.
How very cool, thanks for that! A small part of me envies you, or at least wishes I had had someone similar in my family whom I could talk to when I was young, or who could understand me. I love my dad, but it was hard to have nothing but family members who were clueless, listening to me practice and trying to imitate my teacher and say "that is flat!" when I was sharp. Or worse, asking, "Don't you think you've been doing that enough today?"
But naaaah, if there'd been the pressure of an actual virtuoso in the family, I'd probably have rebelled and ended up being something boring, like a geologist... :-/