Music for Hades

I was carefully stretching this morning, in order to stroll down to the coffee shop as smoothly as possible. I was a little late, because Tempo, the morning classical music programme on CBC Radio, was on, and my goal is to be out the door before it starts. (This would involve rising before 8 am.)

As I gently pulled my leg past 90 degrees, an unnamed Offenbach composition began, and as it played, and I stretched, a band arrangement, performed slightly off-key and a bit slow, ran through my head.

The piece was the Overture to La Belle Hélène, one of the 96 (96!!) operettas that Jaques Offenbach composed, but I'm pretty sure that our junior high band selection was entitled "Offenbach in Hades", and featured three or four well-known tunes, including, of course, the "Can-Can" from Orpheus in Hades.

I hadn't thought of this in years, but knew, as I listened, which musical phrase would follow, because I had played it (badly) when I was fourteen or fifteen.

When I was fifteen, I met a young man who played cello in the Portland Youth Philharmonic. I haven't thought of him in years either.

The tune that summoned back memories this morning begins at the 1 minute, 20 seconds mark.