It’s been nearly a week and a half since I was listening to Tempo With Julie Nesrallah on CBC Radio 2 last Friday when she told a story I haven’t been able to forget. Each Friday Julie reads her favorite fan letters where listeners write in with requests to hear their favorite classical music selections, along with a personal story to go with it. I wish I could find out the name of the man who wrote her, because there was something so simple yet so captivating about his letter.
He wrote how as a little boy, each morning before he would go to school, he would spend time in the kitchen with his father. In those precious moments they would chat, share stories, and sometimes not even share any words at all. He elegantly described the beauty of those moments and how he has never forgotten them ever since. But among the most memorable of details was his father’s love of listening to the music of Brahms during each and every one of those breakfasts. As a little boy who grew into a young man, there was no way he could have realized that the music of Brahms was day-by-day becoming part of his soul. He described how it wasn’t until years later when he fully realized how his own love for the music of Brahms was connected to something far deeper than the music itself. In his own words, he recalls how the music of Brahms and its connection to those memories of mornings with his father had developed within himself a powerful link to intense and warm feelings of safety, love, and protection. To this day, each time he hears Brahms he is immediately returned to those mornings where everything in the world was perfect.
Earlier tonight on my way home from a friend’s place, I happened to have my iPod set to shuffle when it landed on the stunning Adagio from Brahms’ Symphony #1. It got me thinking of how great it would be to maybe have son of my own someday, and what it would be like to give him a memory like that. But who can say though — after all, I’ve been known to change my mind about these kinds of things over breakfast. For more stories from the world of classical music be sure to visit Classical Music on FEELguide.
SEE ALSO: The Bewildering Beauty Of Brahms
SEE ALSO: Read Slate’s 2-Page Interactive Biography Of Composer (And Hottie) Johannes Brahms
SEE ALSO: Hear The Brand New Brahms: Musicologist Discovers 1853 Brahms Piano Solo In Ancient Pyramid
