They must have invaded our planet.

They can’t be human.

But not all invasions are bad, and this one frees and enriches the human spirit.

Of course I’m talking about musicians. How do they do it? I see violinists and pianists in concert, performing long and complicated works from memory without a score.

I have trouble remembering my own name.

The orchestra members have their scores open on music stands, but so many soloists play a whole concerto without reference to the score.

Sometimes they even keep their eyes closed, as if they’re in communion with that other world from whence they came.

Or maybe it’s just that some people have the kind of brain that works on many levels at once. Such exemplaries advance the human race.

It’s beyond my comprehension, and I look at them in awe.

Better brains used to fuller capacity could indeed advance the human race. We don’t need science fiction to imagine it. We have art.

I think, for example, of Toscanini. When we got him as a coup to come to America, he came with the reputation of a photographic memory. On the plane ride over, he read through the score of a new work he would conduct at its premiere. When he arrived, they asked him, “Don’t you want us to schedule a special rehearsal so you can get a sense of the work?”

“No,” he said, “I read it on the flight over.”

He conducted the premiere from memory, without a score, and began his legendary tenure.

Many many years later, at advanced age, he announced, “I have to give up conducting. I’m having trouble remembering the score.”

These are extraordinary minds.

I don’t always recognize them, but they live among us.