Gloria and Schubert

Two pieces of music on the radio moved me deeply today, transported me back in time, and they couldn't have been more different from each other. The first was "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, and seconds after the first two or three notes had been sung I was back in The Gateways Club in Chelsea, dancing crazily, fist pumping the air gleefully with all the other dykes every time the title words were sung. God, they were heady days. I was 35, and my children were tucked up in bed in the care of a much-loved au pair while I enacted a youth I'd never had. My partner and I didn't really belong in the smoke-filled cavern where gender identities were sometimes so blurred that I found myself staring, wondering. It was underground, literally and metaphorically, and being conventional was too important to us then. But the music was always great, and the dancing felt liberating. In spite of all our differences there was a spirit of camaraderie in that space that meant something. We may not know who you are, they seemed to say, but you can be yourself in here, with us. Heady stuff indeed.

The second piece of music was Schubert's String Quintet, an absolutely sublime piece of music. I first heard it in South Hill Park, Bracknell 10 years before the Gaynor song when I'd gone with my then boyfriend, later husband, to review a concert for my newspaper in my small new ancillary role as music critic. I didn't know a huge amount about music in those days, but I loved it and was eager to learn more. The evening couldn't have been more memorable. Several days of savage blizzards had left the roads snow-covered and icy, and we dithered about whether we should risk driving in such treacherous conditions. In the end we went, and joined the other three people in the audience who'd braved the weather. Despite the abysmally poor turnout the quintet agreed to play and, perhaps because the evening was so unusual, the atmosphere so intimate and personal, they poured heart and soul into their instruments. We were both so moved that we reached for each others hand and held it tightly. It was an unforgettable performance for us, and the musicians told us afterwards it had been for them too; chamber music in a real chamber setting. Of course I raved about it in my column. I've rarely been so glad I ignored common sense and took a risk.

Music is the most powerful memory prompt for most of us. It makes coming to terms with grief all the harder, though it brings immeasurable comfort and joy too. Those two memories were replayed in front of my eyes today, unsolicited, with filmic intensity, and I recalled vividly the spaces around me, the way I felt, even what I was wearing both times. I wonder if that facility vanishes with Altzheimer's, or if sufferers are granted periodic flashes of the past when significant music is played. It seems only fair that it should be so.