Brahms Loses His Composure

The final Lunch Hour concert for the semester. The Elder Trio. Pliny should be here, he'd like them. I'm listening to Haydn's Piano Trio in A. It starts with three jabs from a pointy compass.
Then I lose interest.

Now I'm listening to Brahms' Piano Trio No 2 in C. It's about losing something from a small bag inside a big one. Then finding it later at the bottom. Loss, rummaging, sadness, resignation, joy. This is exactly what happened to me earlier. Once I get the idea, I lose interest.

At twenty minutes past three, Brahms is walking along King William Street in the direction of the Central Market, where he plans to meet up with Nostradamus. He is not quite level with the Post Office. He looks up. He sees a network of branches covering the dark white sky. The plane trees are nearly bare and a few leaves hang in the air like musical notes. But for some reason he isn't inspired to compose anything.