Imagine the scene: in the room at the end of the hall, a group of twelve year olds fresh from Long Division pour in, thinking all the things that twelve-year-olds think; within them vies relief at being out of the classroom for forty minutes, dread at possibly having to sing, anxiety (where are my friends sitting? Will I be able to sit next to that girl??), all of them coping with the pressures of a childhood privileged enough to afford them a materially-safe, private education. One or two stragglers come past the stony-faced Mrs Barber with muttered excuses, and she waits, both hands on hips, simmering (thinks: "Just one more noise and I'll knock you dead, Shepherd"). With laser-directed eyes she quietens the chattering class. The Music lesson has begun. With a brief introductory spiel, she takes a record from its sleeve and gently lifts the needle onto it, and those chords prod the silence. The low F insists on itself as they swell and subside, and suddenly the music finds itself in a rumble of C minor.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was transfixed. That may be why I didn't know about anyone else, for, more than any other piece she played us, except perhaps Vltavá by Smetana, this piece had the power to hypnotize. The most remarkable thing is, from this low beginning, the melody manages to go even lower. Brilliant, and when the swell finally does happen, the pianist proffers a tortured continuo bass, like a harpsichordist in a mid-life crisis, and suddenly pops up out of nowhere with two delicious chords on F in the background, a trick it repeats on G a moment later, and the strings become dangerously close to contentment for a second or two, before the brass weighs in with the pressure of two falling semitones as if to say "Not yet you don't". Chastened, the strings retreat. We are firmly in the land of Yearning.

When the strings reach middle C, they say to the pianist, "Go on mate, you have a go." The pianist trifles with it a moment, gives up, and settles for an acceleration, which the orchestra brings to a head on G. Yet this G is not the dominant of C any more, but the mediant of Eb!! Two phrases from the strings point this out elliptically, and the pianist introduces a soaring theme of his own. By this time in the class, the school could be burning down, and Ferns M would still be glued to his chair.

I'm not even going to attempt to analyse the next few minutes, save to say that the two string phrases re-appear, merged into one, crucially when they are played by a horn to anchor the music. Again the pianist goes for the acceleration, and this time he is duffed up by the full might of the brass. To save further woes, he repeats the end of this passage in the key they "suggest", G, and we are in the Development, and back in Yearning Country.

Echoes of the first theme are re-harmonised and re-rhythmed, and the stroke of genius here, is whereas the tune drops from C to F, the wind's answering phrase still ends up on C. The pianist is maddened by this, and repeats it to himself and by extension to us as if to say "Oy Vey." Things grow into a fury of activity until the pianist can take no more, hammers away at chords underneath the rest of the orchestra, and with a crash we are thrown into the orgasmic dance of Recapitulation. Now, when the first tune is over, the pianist, free from inhibitions, takes the strings' theme before they can object, and the brass is noticeable by its absence. Duly we arrive at C, which is now to Eb what A is to the key of C and which is signalled, not by orchestral fortissimo, but by a single stroke of the piano, as if to say "There. Make what you will of that. I've had enough." A solitary horn realises that the pianist isn't going to continue, and takes the responsibility of the soaring theme, now in Bb. A bassoon contributes the brass's falling semitones, and it all swells into a coda on a figure taken from the wind's chirpy response at the beginning of the development. Chirpy no longer...

Not even the pianist has the power to resist, and fumbles around for a bit before showing the orchestra how to treat the subject. The orchestra defers, and the pianist guides us, now all servants of Wistfulness, into a tenuous contact with C major via an expected E. A fact has just surprised me - the pianist can't bring himself to play the note of E here: that would be too final a statement of C major. Instead, a moment later, the strings provide it. The moment disappears, the key implodes from the top and more grief-stricken music is countered by the pianist's acceleration, and with rhythmically-truncated finality, the movement ends. C minor, and don't you forget it, buster. Our class are now pushovers for Mrs Barber to teach, (as long as she doesn't actually ask them to do anything extrovert).

And so to the slow movement, whose first task is to quietly mislead us into E major. E - the very note that contradicts C minor, the very note the pianist couldn't quite bring himself to play! The pianist can't quite believe it and plays B as his first note, and then shows a marked preference for Eb in cases where we expect E. This, allied to the fact that the number 12 is exploited, factorised, re-factorised and churned up in the rhythm (is the piano playing 3-note phrases, 4-note phrases or 6-note phrases?) creates a bizarre, subdued discomfiture in Ferns M. The flute enters and offers a confusing counterpoint before settling down to play that tune, stopping after one phrase, as if conditions must be just right before it continues: the piano has been tootling around below, and takes advantage of the moment to go to B, the dominant of E. The flute tries again with the theme, but it's clearly not going anywhere from here. Two Bbs from the flute muck up any expansion plans, and the pianist intervenes again to bring us back down to E again. This is a more confident display from the pianist now, and he undermines the harmony, forcing the flute to continue the melody until it rests on E. At this point it decides a diminished seventh is what is needed to emphasise the key (a diminished seventh to emphasize a key!!!) 

From this point the clarinet takes over the bass, and the pianist eases himself into the flautist's shoes. The strings move us into B this time, and from there into E. The different instrumentation is a treat. The entire orchestra is now involved apart from the brass). Strings and piano trade meditations onto B again. A change of rhythm and a Mahlerian switch from major to minor from the piano brings us to the next section of the movement.

We are landed temporarily on F# minor (dominant of B), then taken down to C# minor (dominant of F#). The pianist then rumbles away from a bass G before a horn sounds an A (subdominant of E - dominant of D), which the piano can't resist, with famous consequences. The top note is a G by the way, and the piano doesn't quite reach it again, hitting F#  and coming down, we are guided by the clarinet, who soothes the fevered brow of the pianist. Onto A. Thence to E by piano, thence to B. More rumbling (listen carefully!!) and it's the strings this time who introduce a G. Which makes the top note an F. Now, instead of going to Eb, the pianist hits F again, and sees a way out, climbing out to a glorious C#, emphasised by a tuneful fart from the brass. 

The pianist kicks off as if to make up for lost time, and scurries rodent-like(sic) hither and thither until the brass lures it with the cheese of C and snaps shut onto C#. Despite its wriggles, it can't escape, and its revolutionary tendencies banished, it finds its way back, with the help of the woodwind, to E major and the pensiveness with which it began the movement. Strings take over the tune (the pianist now fulfilling a properly subservient role in this society). The diminished seventh comes down again, and the pianist, for his pains, is given the most awesome reward. Note the woodwind chugging away at the arpeggios in the background. The last note sounded is G#, again just failing to establish the wrong key beyond question.

We are taken first from a B-E-G# down through C and various shenanigans to thump out on G at which point the pianist celebrates with the biggest diminished seventh I've ever heard, and gathers up all its enthusiasm. Banish introversion, people, we've reached Fun. More antics, and we settle down to a theme that starts from G and reinstates its dominant potential ( which has been missing since it turned up in the first movement as Eb's mediant!!). Again though, this is no regular melody. There is no set second phrase, and the pianist expands gleefully until it manages to turn C minor's dominant into Eb's mediant courtesy of a trumpet call. Yet Eb is not stated, and this melodic fragment makes its way past E (now emancipated) until it runs out of its harmonic base. Sharps are hinted at, the first theme is amended, and everything ends up on C minor. The piano takes a different, more grandiose look at the theme and we end up with a pleasant tune from the strings in Bb. Yes. A pleasant tune that yearns a little bit. That out the way, the strings retire. The pianist fancies a go, and finds a way to expand the tune so that we get firmly back to Yearning country. Oomph. Then it hovers around a little bit, trills, hovers, and explodes back into the rondo theme and to more experimentation with it. Just listen.

This time, it's the brass that brings us to the cadence for the pianist's grandiose treatment which is accompanied by runs in the left hand and this time goes to C# (mediant of Bb minor) for the string tune (heightened tension). Again the piano does its tricks. Twice now, it has let the strings take the first go, and come in afterwards... It almost settles down on F as mediant of C#, and avoids it with a high, unstable C#. Again we wait for the pianist to get us going again. Takes longer this time, and it guides us gently to G-as-Eb mediant. Woodwind takes over with the rondo theme and eventually all hell breaks loose. In comes the piano, winding, winding, winding,/ It was about here that I began my air-piano rendition on stage at a teachers' talent contest in Prague. It's that I'm remembered for that evening, that rather than my stand up joke about the man in a bar with a cat and an ostrich (some very politically correct people in the audience...). The tune finds its way to C major in its own inspired way, and, oh, you don't want me to analyse the rest. Just listen.