“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!”
~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The first time I heard Albinoni’s Oboe Concert #2 in D Minor I was seven, a little girl sitting in the music room of her primary school, eyes closed as instructed by the teacher who placed a record on a turntable. Suddenly magic was in the room.
Somehow I knew that music. I knew the sound of the oboe. I thrilled with recognition. The way the strings sang and danced their sweet rhythms up and down my skin. The reedy tone of the oboe with its jaunty clarion call. I wanted to dance, to slide and twirl along sprung wooden floors, toes pointed and skirts swaying. The pictures it brought to my imagination!
But I’m sure I’d never heard that music before. Not in this lifetime anyway.
After our class I determinedly stayed behind to ask the teacher what the strange and beautiful music was, and she obligingly wrote it down for me on a scrap of paper. Years later, as a young adult, it was one of the first music CDs I ever bought for myself.
Yesterday afternoon I played that same Albinoni concert again. I cranked up the stereo, and let the music seep deep inside me.
Shortly after the music began, the cows all looked up. Transfixed they came closer. Closer.
After which they settled themselves down and for the next hour we all sat together, quietly listening to a selection of Albinoni’s music.
When it was over they all stood up again and wandered away.
What a magical sharing we had.
I never knew that my cows were fans of Albinoni too. 🙂
And I wonder – thinking back to my first encounter with the music of Albinoni which left me with tears streaming down my cheeks in a class full of seven-year-olds who were all otherwise fidgety, bored and bothered, – has that ever happened to you? That you’ve heard music, or eaten a particular dish or gone to a certain unfamiliar place and thrilled with recognition at a soul level when by rights this thing should be strange and unknown? I’d love to hear from you!
Here’s a little snippet of the music we enjoyed yesterday:
A happy dancing tune…
A reflective and deeply emotive piece…
