In a Dreamer’s web,

Captive to sweet melody.

Freed by the Coda.

The bass line progresses a steady rising and falling at a slow andante. Quarter note after quarter note as treads on a magnificent stair. Above it woven the melody line that tip-toes along with the with sonorous step from tread to tread, building on a loom of interest and intricacy. The melody is unforgettably singable, although there are no words. No words because none are needed. The music says all that could ever be said. Her mind paints a never ending, ever changing kaleidoscope of images. Each evolving image conjured seamlessly into existence from somewhere deep in her unconscious. The melody would not admit any other thoughts, only its own coloured canvass. She closes her eyes for a moment and the colours are projected on the inside of her closed lids. Vibrant, bright, clear and deep. There is no escape.

Someone behind her coughed and for the briefest instant her mind attempted to break free to concentrate on the mundanities of real life. But it was no use, she was enmeshed in the dreamer’s web. She could no more break out of the hypnotic control of the slow moving melody than she could escape from the unfolding of love’s sweet song at the height of passion. The melody softly changes and a mordant sparks a whole new set of colours, a catch, a moment of new direction, before the melody continues its inexorable journey.

She could feel the vibrations deep in her chest, intense, visceral, emotional. The bowing of each string pulls her further and further in to the captivity the piece commands. She has a tightness in her throat, the melody demanding an emotional response from its prisoner. A tear escapes and runs slowly down her cheek and the tightness in her throat eases. Unaware now of anyone or anything around her, she surrenders completely. The second repeat comes to an end and the melody continues on with added vigour and colour and the big exposition was upon her like the crowning moment of her own love story.

On it went, rising and falling, still at its own steady unstoppable pace. Image after image, pulse after pulse. The quarter-note bass line continuing, moving up and down, step by step and the melody wrapping around it, a quaver, a beautiful pair of semi-quavers flow across to a crotchet. The bows of the musicians pulling each moment backward and forwards in time. Feeling the will of the composer though he long dead. She is lost entirely.

She senses that the end is not far away now. She feels the colours and images fusing and building to a majesty of splendour and she is held, held in those final moments of orotund, beautiful melody entwined around the dulcet cadence. The harmony floats towards the last full chord, held for a full long semibreve of perfection. The sound dies, the images fade. She is released.