What was going on when I was born?

The most important music publication of the year is not, hard though it may be to believe, that admirably exhaustive biography of Maestro Ricco Opolento, the titan of the podium who used to conduct Bach's B-minor Mass using only his left eyebrow. Nor is it the equally weighty (5 pounds, 3 ounces) study of the art of Melissa Altissa, the celebrated Transylvanian coloratura whose highest notes are said to induce tachycardia in bats. Books such as these, which come flooding out each season, serve definite purposes - they make wonderful door stops, for instance. Sometimes they also add an infinitesimal some-thing to the sum of human knowledge. We true fans swallow such volumes voraciously, exactly as other readers gulp down murder mysteries or best-sellers by discredited statesmen. But so few books about music or musicians can be taken seriously, except as exercises in historical fiction or career promotion, that the occasional worthwhile publication stands out like a swan on a duck pond.

Funds With a Conscience Social responsibility is returning as a buzzword in the investment world, after a decade of silence. Advocates say deregulation and such problems as chemical dumping are behind the resurgence of social concern. New mutual funds, newsletters and money management services are being spawned. The Washington-based Calvert Social Investment Fund, introduced last October, has attracted nearly $11 million (minimum investment $1,000) to its money market portfolio and its managed growth portfolio. The New Alternatives Fund, based in Great Neck, N.Y., is concentrating on solar and alternative energy investments, mostly in New York Stock Exchange companies. Two mutual funds are awaiting clearance by the Securities and Exchange Commission: the Working Assets Money Fund ($1,000 minimum), in San Francisco, and Shearson/American Express's Trust for Balanced Investment ($100,000 minimum). And Alternative Investments in Boston is working on a venture capital fund to invest in community development projects.

FOR the Campbell Soup Company, last April's directors' meeting was an affair that would not soon be forgotten. Instead of gathering in the 114-year-old company's corporate board room, R. Gordon McGovern, Campbell's president, carted off his directors to two New Jersey supermarkets. His message was simple: The competition in the aisles was fierce, and while Campbell understands and dominates the market for condensed soup, the same can't be said about Campbell shrimp, spaghetti, scallops, scrambled eggs and a whole litany of other new products. Mr. McGovern has been trying to shake up the sleepy company ever since the grocery store rendezvous, concentrating on the company's lagging marketing operations while at the same time embarking on a $75 million acquisition drive that has added more than 100 products to Campbell's list over the last two years. ''I want to be across the whole store, as well as in the institutional and restaurant businesses,'' said the lanky 56-year-old Mr. McGovern, who has been trying for two years to shed the company's soup-only image and to regain ground that Campbell has lost to its archrival - H.J. Heinz.

In an increasingly edgy domestic and diplomatic climate, President Reagan met last week with his top security advisers to discuss how and when the United States might meet the Soviet Union halfway on missile deployment in Europe. But even before the meeting convened, Moscow as good as told Washington that halfway was nowhere. Under considerable pressure from the North Atlantic allies for a compromise that would break the negotiation deadlock in Geneva, the Reagan Administration looked into the possibility of an interim solution while holding fast to its long-range zero option: the elimination of all Soviet missiles targeted on Western Europe in return for abandoning an Allied plan to deploy 108 precision American Pershing 2 missiles and 464 low-flying, radar-evading cruise missiles. Renewed pressure came from Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers who came to Washington and from the newly-elected Christian Democratic Government in West Germany which, however loyal to Washington, is eager for a level of deployment well below the total of 204 missiles planned for it. In Brussels, European members of NATO's consultative group on arms control told United States Assistant Secretary of State Richard Burt they wanted to see some new proposals quickly.

YONKERS AT a time rich in political turmoil, a soft-spoken, 58-year-old real estate man who has never sought elective office announced last week that he wanted to run for Mayor here. James J. O'Keefe said he would seek the Democratic Party designation to run against the Republican Mayor, Angelo R. Martinelli, in November's election. Mr. O'Keefe, the first Democrat to announce a candidacy, thus entered a political arena in which his own party is being restructured in the wake of scandal and the City Council is being reshaped after the death of the 110-year-old ward system. Last November, the voters approved a plan that reduced the number of Council members from 13 to seven. The move has helped two members to decide on retirement, at least two others to consider switching parties and others to run for Mayor or to leave comfortable neighborhood wards for citywide campaigns in this city of 195,000 people.

ONE afternoon during the first month of the St. John's basketball s eason, as the Redmen were on their way to their 14-game winning s treak, Lou Carnesecca decided he had seen enough. Over the last two s easons the Redmen had somehow failed to exhibit the pettiness, j ealousy and selfishness that many coaches seem willing to tolerate w hile they hope to win a national championship. Yet for one day C arnesecca was tired of looking at them. This was the group that had inspired Carnesecca to say, again and again, ''You may not like the results, but you'll like the kids.'' However, on this day of practice back in December, Carnesecca was thrilled with neither. He threw his team off the Alumni Hall floor, sent the Redmen to the locker room to dress and go home, and left the floor, annoyed. It was after the players reached the dressing room that something unusual happened. ''I was about ready to say something,'' said Billy Goodwin, the senior swingman and verbal leader, ''but Trevor and Dave already spoke up.'' David Russell, a co-captain and the thirdleading scorer in school history, and Trevor Jackson, the co-captain who had played little throughout his career, decided to organize their own practice.