I stumbled upon a reference to George Winston’s December the other day and I was caught up in a memory as powerful as a tidal wave.

How can it be that I haven’t thought about this album for more than 20 years?

The album was released in 1982, when I was 10 years old, but I remember it best from my sophomore year in high school.

My parents would play it frequently, and later I took to listening to it all the time on my own. I loved the wintry mood it set (maybe this was the genesis of my obsession with melancholy music).

I particularly loved Winston’s take on Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D.’ At the time I thought he was playing the tune as written, and not doing his own riff on it. So I bought the sheet music and aimed to play it myself. The actual piece is much less elaborate and beautiful than this one, much to my disappointment.

Hearing it again all these years later, it grips me just as powerfully. This could be the most beautiful piece of instrumental music I’ve ever heard.