The endless joy of music

Last week, our friends at Performance Today created a video of pianists Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung performing a duet of "Libertango" by Astor Piazzolla. The performance is certainly technically masterful, but it's also fun, playful — and, as one might expect from a tango — kind of romantic and sexy. If you haven't seen the video yet, you can watch it here on the PT website.

That duet brought to mind another video that's been floating around the Internet for a few years. They may not be professional musicians, but Fran and Marlo Cowan combine solid piano playing with a sense of joy in their duet of a ragtime piece, "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet," performed in the lobby of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in 2008.

I'm guessing the Cowans have a few years on Bax and Chung, but their enjoyment of the music is just as palpable.

It's another example of how music can be constantly enriching. Fun as they may be, some activities are generally limited to certain stages in our lives — pole vaulting, hang gliding, running with the bulls in Pamplona, to name a few. But the joy music gives us? That's ageless.