I was at Princeton Record Exchange the other day, when something surreal happened. I was down on my knees, flipping through the dollar bins on the floor of the classical section, when I espied a CD of music by the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg. The spine indicated a couple of concertos I knew I didn’t have in my collection. But what I found momentarily disorienting was a label on the front of the jewel case that sported some very familiar scrawl.

Was this a CD from the WWFM library? At first, I thought so. It was only upon further reflection that the truth became clear. This CD belonged to my former colleague, Bliss Michelson.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but Bliss and I had a long association, from the time he taught me the ropes at WWFM in Trenton-Princeton, in 1995, to only a few years ago, when we were both on-call hosts at WRTI in Philadelphia. Bliss died in March from complications of COVID-19.

At WWFM, we had these labels that we affixed to the jewel cases of the CDs in the station library, on which we indicated the date and time the individual contents were played. At some point, we transitioned to a spread sheet on the computer, but we kept up the stickers all the same.

For some of us, our programming was heavily supplemented by music from our collections. To help keep track, Bliss carried over the labeling system to his own records. Many was the time that I’d be going through the library only to alight upon an interesting CD I hadn’t noticed there before. Of course, it was one of Bliss’ discs, accidentally shelved. On those occasions, I would leave it on his desk with a post-it note.

Then and now, his scrawl is unmistakable. So someone must have sold at least some of his collection to Princeton Record Exchange. It would have been fairly recently, since the price tag bears the date of 11-21.

What I learned from Bliss is incalculable. In particular, he really expanded my knowledge of Nordic repertoire. We were both Sibelius fans, and Bliss was enormously proud of his Swedish heritage. It’s a strange coincidence to have made the discovery of this CD. Bliss continues to introduce me to new music, even from beyond the grave.

You too might be interested to give it a listen, because it’s a knockout. If you love Rachmaninoff, Atterberg’s Piano Concerto is a one-way ticket to Valhalla. The movements are posted separately, so let the playlist run.

How is it I never encountered this before? Thank you, Bliss!