A violin, a cello and a piano

...walk up to a bar.

***

The perfect piano would be too delicate to touch.

***

New cellos are no good. The perfect cello must be aged for years in cask of pure silence, until all its high-strung bitterness had turned to mellow grief.

***

There's really nothing like discovering a new piece of great music, is there? This week's find for me [1] was Beethoven's Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C, Op. 56. It's an incredible piece of music, combining energy and song as only Beethoven can, and to hear a version of it performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Karajan with soloists Oistrakh, Rostropovich and Richter is an experience so exhilarating it ought to be illegal without a prescription.

You can find a version of the piece (with the same soloists, but a different orchestra) on YouTube: here, here, here and here.

[1] Strauss's Symphonia domestica, which I heard performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn yesterday, comes in a close second.