Hidden but not forgotten. They are just lurking deep in the mind’s archive waiting to be awakened.

And that’s what happened to me just the other afternoon. I was listening to Classic FM. Well, just hearing really, not paying attention as I was reading a book at the time. High brow Muzak.

Pachelbel’s Canon in D major. A popular piece of music (number 35/300 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2024 chosen by listeners), by German composer Johann Pachelbel (right, 1653-1706), although its date of composition is not known with any certainty.

As I put my book down and listened more attentively, lots of memories resurfaced from my time in Lima, Peru in the early 1970s.

Here’s the twist, however. I’m not sure all those years ago if it was Pachelbel’s Canon or the  Adagio in G minor by ‘Tomaso Albinoni’ that I heard. Let me explain.

I’m guessing it was sometime between December 1973 and March 1974. So why should I zero in on those particular months?

I know it was post-July 1973 because that’s when Steph joined me in Lima. And before April 1975, because that’s when we returned to the UK for a few months. And in any case we had already given up our apartment in Miraflores after the October 1974 earthquake, and spent the next six months house-sitting for colleagues from the International Potato Center (CIP) where Steph and I worked.

I do remember it was a weekend, and the weather was glorious. Bright and sunny, and rather hot, typical Lima summer weather (unlike the gloomy, foggy days of the middle months of the year). We’d left our apartment to go shopping, and pick up copies of Time and Newsweek from a bookshop in the San Isidro district that we often visited. This particular bookshop or libreria was located in a small shopping center overlooking Avda. Paseo de la Republica/Via Expressa, just opposite the Petroperú building.

I don’t think it’s there any more. I’ve looked on Google Maps and Streetview and it looks like the area has been redeveloped in the intervening decades. I hardly recognise any of the surroundings.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we also decided to browse the bookshop’s music section. And in the background, I heard this piece of music I’d never heard before. The Canon or the Adagio? I don’t recall. But both pieces were on the same vinyl that I purchased there and then! I’ve enjoyed both ever since.

Tomaso Albinoni (left below, 1671-1751) was a Venetian composer, but did he write the Adagio in G minor? Is it a musical hoax? Its composition is attributed to Italian musicologist Remo Giazotto (right below, 1910-1998), an expert on Albinoni. He is said to have composed/elaborated the Adagio based on a fragment of one of Albinoni’s manuscripts while others believe he composed the whole piece. Certainly Giazotto had the copyright.

I was totally unaware of this interesting back story. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful and much appreciated piece of music, that gained position 170/300 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2024. Enjoy this interpretation.