4. The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
5. Playing the Fool by Gentle Giant

In the summer of 1978, probably August, I spent two or three weeks staying with an aunt and uncle who lived in Québec City. While there I purchased a couple of LP's. By extreme coincidence they were the two listed above. I'm not sure which orchestra did The Rite of Spring. I checked this morning and, sadly, neither disk remains in my collection. I do, however, have multiple versions of the former on my iPod as well as the reissued version of the latter.

In 1978 I was nineteen and had just completed my second year of university at UBC. My first year was at the Okanagan College in Vernon, BC. During that first year I took a music appreciation course which must have been where I was exposed to the The Rite of Spring. The teacher of that course suggested to my friends and me that we might like Gentle Giant. How had she even heard of them? But was she ever right (for me at least, my friends stuck with big band jazz). I loved Gentle Giant's brand of pretentious progressive rock. They referenced RD Laing. They played the harpsichord. They were gargantuan. They played recorders. What was not to like?

I never got to see Gentle Giant in concert. By the time I was interested in them they weren't touring North America and were pretty close to breaking up. One of the guys at my residence at UBC had seen them play live. I think they opened for Yes. He said something about a dragon.

A decade or so ago (in the late 1990's) I went up to San Francisco and saw the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra perform The Rite of Spring under Michael Tilson Thomas. I thought I knew that piece of music very well. I'd listened to it regularly for twenty-plus years. I knew that piece of music. Ha! Watching it performed live was a revelation. I had chosen a seat close to and in front of the cello section (I was learning to play the cello at the time). I remember my astonishment at seeing waves of melody passing through the cellos. Themes that I had never consciously heard before.

I suppose I should make some pithy observation about those who listen but do not hear. But who would benefit from that? Me? I think not.