Song from a Secret Garden — Secret Garden (1996) — A Surreal Symphony

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told. — Charles Dickens

Childhood was but a distant memory flushed away in the depths of my heart. Yet one day, when the song came on the stereo of my friend’s car. The playlist of songs, symphonies that ushered the reminisce of memories old and perhaps forgotten started to rush in my mind. The score and the pace of the piano as it slowly opened the closed up layers of my heart, and thus the film of events that began to unravel, an enigmatic sense of feelings and emotions long buried inside started to reappear on my face. This feeling of joy, and sadness that brew inside my soul, the times I spent with her came back as a swift blow to my senses.

It’s the merry-hearted boys that make the best men! — Irish Proverb

I remembered her charming face, as she smiled and took care of me as a young boy, and the feelings that followed. I believe she was probably one of the most colorful of people that I adored while growing up. The times and adventures spent together, the fun we used to have. The activities, the games we used to play. She was the best of all in every activity that she did. The short summer that she spent with us, the months that followed were definitely one of the most pleasant of memories I have as a child.

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart — A. A. Milne

Her vigor, and personality and the days flashed back and forth as the symphony continued to run through my soul. As soon as the violin started to play the times when she had to say goodbye stirred a difficult sense of emotions; sadness that quickly released the tears I had kept in me for so long. The ones I held when I saw her stepping into the car, while I was watching her from the balcony moving away forever. As the time we spent had to come to an end, I started to shed a few tears in the car meanwhile my friend was driving. These memories were truly something that was locked away in pandora’s box of my soul.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light. — Robert Baden-Powell

And as I was listening to this entire majestic score, feelings of joy started to sprout on my face, as I looked forward to the future and thanking my dear friend and being grateful to have listened to this emotional music that made me celebrate a lost memory of the past that gave me an insurmountable amount of joy and recollection; and the woman who taught me the value of true admiration and love.

[T]he truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. — Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

The author of the symphony said it best, and I believe it to be the case that,

“The idea of Secret Garden is one that everyone can relate to. We all have landscapes inside us, secret rooms where feelings and impressions grow as a little garden. We have individual ways of finding this garden. Some talk about it, write poems or letters, paint, or even talk a walk to reflect over life. We all have our own way. But what is common to us, is a strong emotional feeling that is an essential part of our nature. My way of dealing with this is through music, and everything I write comes from my secret garden. This simple piece had no other name than Pianopiece in C Minor for many years. But when the Secret Garden project evolved, I felt this piece could express the essence of my ideas- the simple melody strait from the heart, expressed through Fionnualas soulful, vulnerable and naked violin playing.” -Rolf Lovland