Aimez-vous Brahms?

… Blackburn | Hyped on Melancholy. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)

As memory condenses timeline, I elide the months between lectures on medieval and romantic periods. I remember my music history professor telling us his own music history professor habitually mispronounced organum as orgasm. I also remember him saying that most people can’t appreciate Brahms until their thirties. Then time slows down again. I can close my eyes and return to the moment my professor stoops to punch play on the classroom stereo. The opening chords of Opus 10, No. 4 unfurl. The melody climbs then sighs and descends. I sit back at my desk and silently cry. I am seventeen and convinced by the time Arthur Rubinstein plays through measure four that I have an old soul.

Guess I must be also. I've loved Brahms all my life.