I am breathless as I write these words. I've just listened to the Berlin Philharmonic play Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and even though I know the piece so well, their playing just made tears come to my eyes, something that never happened before. But then, when the oboe came in.... I was just speechless! I forgot to breathe! It was so beautiful that it made me stop everything that I was doing, just to hear it. It was just that very tiny section where the oboe has a bit of a solo, but I knew immediately that I had to google the oboist who was playing it! It's Albrecht Mayer. That guy is just ridiculous. In the good way. About a month ago I'd just been listening to the preview of Albrecht Mayer and the King's Singers. I wasn't expecting much - oboe and a cappella singing isn't an arrangement that immediately comes to mind. But it just made me smile from start to finish. And now, this. I think he might just have made me fall in love with the oboe. But that love is at once joyful and sorrowful, for I will never be able to play the oboe as beautifully as he does. Ever.
It's so crazy, but after listening to the Polovtsian Dances, and hearing yet another solo from him, my instinct after the piece has ended, is to hum the melody. But now I am no longer satisfied with my own voice. The sound of his oboe is so perfect, so pure, that nothing can substitute. This is madness. I tremble to press play on the next piece, for fear that the thrall of his playing will enslave me to sitting, awestruck and motionless, in front of the computer for hours. Yet, it draws me with a force beyond what I can explain. Absolute insanity.
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