I was close enough to see the musicians preparing their instruments. The pianist pumped his pedals. The clarinet player rotated his barrel and blew on the holes. The cellist drew her bow through a cloth and laid the cloth on the floor. She prodded her strings, fiddled with the keys, and brought her hand to rest on the slope of the wood. By some freaky coincidence was it Robin’s C-Major Trio? No, selections from the first and third movements of the A Minor. All was ready. Tuning up had finished. The ministers had withdrawn to their chairs in the front row, the black tails of their robes sticking out. Fingers were poised. The bow hand was arched at the far end of the bow.

They began calmly enough. The cellist had a sweet idea. The piano, then the clarinet, considered it, took it over, gave it back. Before long they were playing with their whole bodies. The pianist hunched over, pulling his fingers reluctantly off the keys. Comically the clarinetist puffed out his cheeks. As the music zigzagged upward, one of his hands tried to fly off and conduct. I leaned forward, afraid for him. But no, he wiped the hand on his leg and replaced it just in time. The room swelled with music. The melody swirled and pranced, passing between the instruments, picking things up and, as the section drew to a close, setting them down.

They began again, quick and sharp. The pianist was in a world of his own, but the other two exchanged meaningful looks. Soon the cellist and her bow were in a frenzy, her black hair swinging side to side, beating out the time. Not gently, the cello’s neck was gripped, the strings were pinned down by the dramatic vibration of her curved fingers. The melody loosened and tightened, climbed up and up, turned back on itself. The clarinetist had hold of a long sinuous passage. He was following it around to see where it would go, arching his back to make his body more available to the music, almost lifting off the chair. At the last minute he descended. The pianist finished with a stack of chords that made his hands pop off the keys. The cellist bent her head.

People exhaled and shifted their feet. No applause, no whistling, no standing ovation. To go through all that and get so little in return! I longed to rush up to the musicians and confess to something. The woman minister stepped to the lectern and said thank you on behalf of everyone, and thank you to the director who had made this possible, and the musicians tramped down some steps back of the stage. I sat in light-headed silence. Had I ever really listened to music before?