Cartoon for Hadyn's Symphony in C. Minor

The Conductor's hand flutters, an osprey in the air and crashes, beak first, into an arpeggio. Two minutes later We enter the deep chords, all of us at sea. Submerged, we discover we can breathe water. The black whale cruises past, sprouting a spray of staccato notes. Wise-eyed cellos dive and roll in his wake. Deeper and deeper we sink. The clarinet darts and glints between us: little brother mackerel. We rake bottom, resign our reason, cancel our intellect, abandon our future appointments. We are the sea we batter in. Up, then, we clutch to the beam of a tune. The threshed and disheveled sea prepares itself to find a shore. At the edge, the bassoon frets on stork's legs. Zook zook zook What land is this where the bearded frown of a curlew drops its claims on the rock of a kettle drum. Opened, gasping, blankeyed, we lie awash on the dark shore of the stage.