Chesuncook Lake, Maine, USA

Late summer 1979

The notes floated over the placid lake, gently settling in the darkness around us. I sat back and felt myself relax the muscle tensions built up over a day of rowing on the Penobscot River. Curt paused and then continued playing Mozart’s horn concerto # 3, fingering the keys with great familiarity. One by one the notes built to a crescendo and then they were finished. Silence followed, filling the space of sound as each notes faded one by one.

We looked at each other and smiled. There couldn’t be anything more perfect than an evening on the shores of  Chesuncook Lake; at a tent campsite listening to Curt’s Mozart horn concertos on his French horn.  All these years later, I wonder how many people that summer in their cabins on the shores of Chesuncook Lake, a remote lake in northern Maine,  heard his impromptu concert. How many people wondered where such beautiful music came from as it drifted about in the night air.

Written 2009