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My wife and I invited another couple over to dinner the other night. We listened to some Ella Fitgerald and Joe Pass over drinks before dinner, and when our friend heard the song, "Nature Boy", she said, "This is one of my favorite songs." We adjourned to the dining room where I told her that I had another version of that song that I would like to play for her after dinner.
Ella and Joe are great, but my favorite version of this wonderful song is by Musica Nuda. I played it for my friend. She sat there silently taking it all in, and after composing herself, she asked if I could play some more music for her. Her husband and my wife were cleaning up in the kitchen.
Thus began an hour and a half of music listening: After the small scale girl with bass studio recording, Peggy Lee sang Fever, Monks chanted in a small stone church, an organ played and the choir sang in a vast cathedral, a jazz band swung in a club, skeletons danced on graves at midnight in Dance Macabre, and finally Sigiswald Kuijken played Bach's Chaconne, brilliantly.
My friend loves music, but like most of my friends, she has not heard it reproduced like this. She shared what she heard, describing particularly the different spaces and beauty of the performances, the tone of the instruments, and the memories it all evoked. As she and her husband were putting on their coats to leave, my friend remarked how she had been taken back to the days when she went to live performances years ago.
The next day I received a very kind note thanking us for the dinner and for the music concert in the living room afterwards. Such evenings spent sharing music and emotions with good friends is the highlight of this hobby for me.