Listening to Schumann’s Romance in F Sharp Major and musing on piano wheels

In the unlikeliest situations the mind can tear off enthusiastically in unaccountable directions. In the bath, or in the watches of the night, or when almost too exhausted to stand, ideas can suddenly start coming at us, fast and furious. It can happen listening to music, too, as I found out last week.

We were at the Wigmore Hall in London, listening to the Swedish pianist Bengt Forsberg play Bach, Schumann and Fauré with artistry and intelligence, when I found myself staring at the wheels of the big black grand piano. And slowly I realised how ball-bearings work. It took me the whole of Schumann’s Romance in F sharp major Op. 28 No. 2, but the engineering discovery was a revelation — and a reproach, too, for never having thought about it before. Ball bearings are desperately important to modern machinery, as in this unbidden burst of reflection I realised.

But why there? Why then? I doubt I’m alone in experiencing inexplicable boosts to my modest powers of thought, in circumstances that might suit a different mental state.