Why do we love music?

Following the US government’s recent report there has been a resurgence of interest in UFO's. Personally I retain an open but cautious mind on the subject. It feels not too dissimilar to the God argument, well pictured in Orual's "If that's all they mean, why do they wrap it up in so strange a fashion?" "Doubtless," said Arnom (and I could tell that he was yawning inside the mask, being worn out with his vigil), "doubtless to hide it from the vulgar."  If either entities exist, why do they dangle half truths so enticingly? Why not either totally hide or brazenly show themselves for what they are?

Imagine these supposed green men (or maybe there's only one who is extremely dextrous), sentient yet alien to human culture, discovering thousands of humans crowed into an enclosure (in this instance the one we call the Royal Albert Hall) in which a number of them are blowing into or otherwise stimulating convoluted sound making machines, and enduring for a significant period this experience with apparently very great pleasure?

Concerning this piece, the composer said "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again". And I can believe it. And this is possibly the best recording I have heard and if it don't send shivers down your spine then I don't know what will. 

So, why do we humans love music?

The Royal Albert Hall

I have mentioned Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3 before. I raved about it in teenage years whilst at school with nickname SSS. It has been somewhat mutilated in common culture by its use in that dreadful film Babe, but that's OK because I've never been common and don't intend to start now.

So I was listening to this recording in a Proms concert and came all over with possessive feelings about the Royal Albert Hall, the BBC, and indeed London then England in general. I am English, after all, and cannot help it. I was born like it. Is that wrong? Even though I do not think I have ever had the privilege of attending a Proms concert, that being not for lack of desire but because of other persuasions.

Here in Dublin we have the National Concert Hall which is OK but not quite the same. You can say what you like about Brexit or not Brexit, about the Empire and all its dreadful atrocities, but there is something solid about England. Winchester. Oxford. Even Cambridge. The Pennines. Devon and Cornwall. Hampshire. Alresford. This is My England. I wonder will I ever live there again?