I’ve always felt uneasy about the idea of surprise parties – and perhaps my unease has conveyed itself to others, for nobody has ever thrown one for me. There is always the danger that despite the best intentions the person in question would have preferred to spend a quiet evening watching David Attenborough or one of those DVDs that come with the Sunday newspapers. But the surprise 50th birthday party that I attended last weekend felt thoroughly right and appropriate.

Part of the point was that the birthday girl was too self-effacing to have thought of celebrating in such public style a life that has been lived in a very unselfish way, as a daughter, teacher, mother, wife, member of a church, choral singer and choir administrator – a full life but one seldom lived in the limelight.

It seemed like an appreciation by her husband and sons for what the philosopher Ivan Illich called the “unpaid shadow work” often performed by women. Not that Caroline has resented playing the roles of mother and wife in a supposedly old-fashioned or unfashionable way: she once confided to me (I am godfather of one of her sons) that she loved nothing more than being a mother, cooking bacon and eggs for her sons and their friends before sending them off to play rugby or hockey.

The evening began with music – not least because it was music that brought husband and wife together. Two sons played Schumann (Aufschwung from Fantasiestuecke) and Debussy (the Sarabande from Pour le Piano), with considerable aplomb, and then came the first big surprise. The youthful Hampden string quartet, three of them still students at the Royal Academy of Music, arrived and performed six of the most stirring movements ever composed for this combination. I don’t think anyone was unmoved by the ardour and commitment with which this group delivered the soul-harrowing slow movement of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet and the exuberant finale of Beethoven’s opus 130.

This music led us into the feasting but it was so much more than a mere prelude or preamble. It reminded me of George Herbert’s great statement in The Pearl, “I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,/ The lullings and the relishes of it/ ... What mirth and music mean.” This religious poet believes there is something ultimately still more valuable than learning, pleasure and honour; but the supreme value of that something (the love of God) can only be gauged by the fullest and deepest appreciation of worldly values.

What music meant, in this instance, was a life-enhancing power of full expression. So often in life we leave things unsaid, or half-said; there was so much more we meant to say, or wished we had said better. Hearing a fine musician or group of musicians play is witnessing a gesture and an emotion fully realised. I felt that recently when the mature and distinguished Chilingirian Quartet played Haydn at their Chamberfest at the Royal College of Music; one day the talented young Hampdens may match that level.

This concert that preceded the supper was also a demonstration of the original meaning of chamber music: music played in a room, not in a great echoing hall, the small scale bringing intimacy both between performers and audience, and among audience members themselves, who could see each other’s expressions and emotions.

The meal itself was obviously an occasion for conversation; between friends and family members (three generations were present) and also new acquaintances. I got chatting to someone with an interesting view on the current times. “I don’t think this slowdown is such a bad thing,” he said, probably unaware that he was preaching to the converted; “it gives us more time to think and reflect.”

To think and reflect about things of fundamental importance, he might have added. And the whole celebration, though it had a certain grandeur (not everyone can hire a string quartet for a birthday party, but I reckon it would always be money well spent), was not grand or showy in its essence. It was essentially a celebration of the most basic human values – family affection, friendship, community.

In What is Called Thinking? Heidegger reminds us that thinking and thanking come from the same root. “The Old English thencan, to think, and thancian, to thank,” he tells us, “are closely related; the Old English noun for thought is thanc or thonc – a thought, a graceful thought, and the expression of such a thought.” He goes even further to suggest that the deepest kind of thinking is not the conceptual-rational manipulation of ideas but the thoughtful giving of thanks.

At the end of Caroline’s birthday party, her husband Nick read a poem – a sonnet, in fact – that he had written to give thoughtful thanks for a 20-year marriage. It did not consist of anodyne praise or bland platitude, but rather honest reflection on the difficulties as well as the rewards of loyalty and constancy, rather in the manner of George Meredith’s Modern Love. I thought it the most touching part of a very touching evening.

harry.eyres@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/eyres