music mind booklet - buywell.com · to six notes: ‘if i set it up right, that is when the sun...

MUSIC FOR THE MINDCLASSICAL MUSIC FOR YOUR WELL-BEING

2CD

Music Mind Booklet 18/05/12 3:31 PM

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CD1 [66’35]

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 1756-1791

1 The Marriage of Figaro: Overture 4’23Orchestra Victoria, Richard Divall conductor

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 1770-1827

2 Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ‘Pastoral’: I. Pleasant, cheerful sensations awakened on arrival in the countryside (Allegro ma non troppo) 10’29Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, David Porcelijn conductor

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 1685-1750

3 Prelude in C major, BWV846 from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 2’15Sally Whitwell piano

JOSEPH HAYDN 1732-1809

4 Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob.VIIb:1: Second movement (Adagio) 7’25Sally Maer cello, Sinfonia Australis, William Motzing conductor

ERIK SATIE 1866-1925

5 Gymnopédie No. 1 from Three Gymnopédies 3’02Stephanie McCallum piano

OTTORINO RESPIGHI 1879-1936

6 Italiana from Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3 3’00Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, David Stanhope conductor

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL 1685-1759

7 Water Music Suite in D major, HWV349: Second movement (Alla hornpipe) 3’04Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Graham Abbott conductor

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART8 Clarinet Quintet in A major, KV581: Second movement (Andante) 6’43

Kammer (John Lewis clarinet, Scott Taggart, Rebecca Somers violins, Nicole Forsyth viola, Daniel Yeadon cello)


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EDWARD ELGAR 1857-1934

9 Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 ‘Enigma’: No. 9 Nimrod 3’14Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Myer Fredman conductor

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN 1810-1849

0 Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2 3’50Ewa Kupiec piano

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN! Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 7: Fourth movement

(Rondo: Poco allegretto e grazioso) 6’57Gerard Willems piano

FRANZ SCHUBERT 1797-1828

@ Piano Quintet in A major, D667 ‘The Trout’: Fourth movement (Theme and Variations: Andantino – Allegretto) 7’18Seraphim Trio (Anna Goldsworthy piano, Helen Ayres violin, Timothy Nankervis cello), Jacqueline Cronin viola, David Campbell double bass)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART£ Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, KV495: Third movement (Rondo: Allegro vivace) 3’47

Lin Jiang horn, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Barry Tuckwell conductor


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CD2 [69’47]

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL1 Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV351: La Réjouissance (Rejoicing) 2’03

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Graham Abbott conductor

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH2 Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV1048: First movement (Allegro) 5’26

Orchestra of the Antipodes, Anna McDonald director

ANTONIO VIVALDI 1678-1741

3 The Four Seasons – Winter, RV297: Second movement (Largo) 1’25Barbara Jane Gilby violin, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Geoffrey Lancaster director

JULES MASSENET 1842-1912

4 Meditation from Thaïs 5’33Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, David Stanhope conductor

CLAUDE DEBUSSY 1862-1918

5 Clair de lune (Moonlight) from Suite bergamasque 5’10Stephanie McCallum piano

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN6 Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No.2 ‘Moonlight’: First movement

(Adagio sostenuto) 6’24David Stanhope piano

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH7 Viola da Gamba Sonata No. 3 in G major, BVW1029: Second movement (Adagio) 5’22

Daniel Yeadon viola da gamba, Neal Peres da Costa harpsichord

ANTONIO VIVALDI8 The Four Seasons – Spring, RV269: First movement (Allegro ma non troppo) 3’24

Elizabeth Wallfisch violin, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Paul Dyer director


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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN9 Piano Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 31 No. 3 ‘The Hunt’: Third movement (Menuetto:

Moderato grazioso) 4’29Gerard Willems piano

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN0 Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36: First movement (Adagio – Allegro con brio) 10’22

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, David Porcelijn conductor

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART ! Serenade in G major, KV525 ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ (A Little Night Music):

First movement (Allegro) 5’06Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Geoffrey Lancaster conductor

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH@ Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV1007: First movement (Prelude) 2’44

Michael Goldschlager cello

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART £ Symphony No. 41 in C major, KV551 ‘Jupiter’: First movement (Allegro vivace) 11’12

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductor


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This collection is called ‘Music for the Mind’ but really it’s for the mind and the heart.

As acclaimed neuroscientist Oliver Sacks says in his book Musicophilia, music calls to both parts of ournature, the intellectual and the emotional. ‘We may be moved to the depths,’ he says, ‘even as weappreciate the formal structure of a composition.’

It is twenty years since the research which gave us the oft-quoted (and misrepresented!) ‘MozartEffect’. It looked at three different listening states – silence, relaxation music and a Mozart sonat a – andcompared the effects of each on one aspect of listeners’ IQ tests. At the time, the findings werepicked up by a frenzied media, exaggerated, and the fire of controversy has raged ever since.

Today, developments in neuroscience have spawned a veritable research revolution which supports theassertion that there is a host of positiv e impacts on individuals and on societ y which come fromlistening to – and making – music. For example, we know a lot about the wondrous impacts of musicon the physical aspects of our brain development, from our time in the womb to the end of life. Thefirst mother-baby bond is inherently a musical one, as a bab y’s brain is attuned to the musicality of itsmother’s voice in what scientists believe is an important evolutionary survival strategy.

There have been lots of studies around music, involving residents of nursing homes and people withmental illness, which show links between music making and listening and reductions in the stresshormone, cortisol. There are reports, too, that playing classical music in Intensive Care Units produces acalming effect which reduces patients’ dependence on medication after surgery. Endorphins triggered bymusic provide a kind of pain relief, where dopamine creates feelings of optimism, energy and power.

Sounds are more potent stimuli than sights in most people, as auditor y receptors cover a larger regionof the brain. This makes music an important part of the long-term rehabilit ation of people after traumaor brain injury. A high-profile recent example is the remarkable progress of US Congressw omanGabrielle Giffords, for whom music has literally been a lifeline after a gunshot wound to the head.Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star never sounded so good.

As we transition out of life, we keep our musical memories to the end. Man y of us caring for lovedones with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease have clung gratefully to the special moments that comewhen an otherwise unresponsive relative becomes enlivened on hearing a familiar piece of music, orsings a few lines of a favourite song fluidly and in tune even though a spoken sentence might be


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elusive. The US ‘Music and Memory’ initiative works on this very principle of retained musical memory.It sees elderly nursing home residents helped to re-engage with lif e through iPods, headphones and acustomised playlist of personally meaningful music.

While there are many benefits which come from music listening, more still come from music making ,a fact which has prompted Sacks to say that musical performance is as important to a child’s educationas reading and writing. Take, for example, a 2006 Canadian study which compared the effect of justone year’s violin training on children’s brain development and found striking changes compared to thechildren’s non-playing peers.

In Australia, researchers at Western Australia’s Murdoch University conducting the 2005 NationalReview of School Music Education found that music ‘uniquely contributes to the emotional, ph ysical,social and cognitive growth of all students.’ More recently, Melbourne education researchers BrianCaldwell and Tanya Vaughan have written about music’s transformative impacts on disadvantagedchildren’s academic achievement, social and emotional wellbeing and even school attendance.

With exciting recent discoveries about the plasticity of the brain – its const ant ability to repair, change,‘relearn’ – across the entire lifespan, not just through childhood, there are salutary lessons for all of usas we age. Dust off the trumpet and get that old piano tuned! We can take inspiration from OliverSacks who presented himself with piano lessons f or his 75th birthday, revisiting a skill he had let lapsefor sixty years.

Many of the giant intellects through the ages ha ve been active musicians. Einstein said he lived hisdaydreams in music: ‘I get most joy in life out of music.’ That brings us to terrain beyond the physical,to music’s more metaphysical impacts: the place where the mind meets the heart.

Music can lift us up, bridge joy and suffering, unlock grief, release trauma and transport us to the bestof times. It can be transcendent. Musicians and listeners alik e often speak of becoming ‘lost’ in music.This is the transporting kind of positive ‘flow’ experience we hear so much about in psychology, wheretime seems to stand still and there is a heightened sense of consciousness.

We can be moved to tears by a piece of music. We can even feel trusting enough to allow ourselvesmusic-induced weeping while sitting next to a complete stranger at a concert. Why is music soaffecting? What’s going on when a musician t akes a piece of music and communicates emotion?Researcher and musician Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music, leads a laboratory at


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McGill University in Montreal. He has been conducting e xperiments on this very issue, partly spurredby a concert performance of one of his favourite pieces of music, a piano concerto b y Mozart, whichunexpectedly left him cold. The composer had done a great job, the set of notes w ere perfect, so howdid the pianist get it so wrong? The research is groundbreaking, because it is having a go at quantifying‘expressivity’. Using a specially built piano with sensors under eac h key, Levitin’s team recordedMcGill’s head of piano, Thomas Plaunt, playing Chopin nocturnes with varying degrees of expression,then modified the recordings for their test subjects. Individuals were asked to rate the playing. The‘most emotional’ performance won out.

The relationship between composer, performer and listener is a profound and sensitive one. It seemsthe listener’s ability to be able to pick up on and predict patterns in music creates conditions for anelement of surprise which can be exploited by the expert musician. Quoted in the New York Times,cellist Yo-Yo Ma gives some insight into this by explaining the forces at play when, for example, heplays a 12-minute sonata featuring a recurring four-note melody, which on the final repetition expandsto six notes: ‘If I set it up right, that is when the sun comes out. It’ s like you’ve been under a cloud andthen you are looking once again at the vist a and then the light is shining on the whole v alley.’ But it’s asubtle thing. He says he has to hold back, to save the sunshine until just the right moment. It w on’twork, he says, if his playing has been too exuberant throughout, leaving the listener already ‘blinded bycars driving at night with headlights in y our eyes.’

In addition to positive impacts on the individual, the social e xperience of sharing music with others canbuild empathy and enable people from different backgrounds to put aside those differences andconnect. There are many inspiring schools and communities in Australia in which this principle is writlarge. Australian research has shown that characteristics of communities in which there is muchmusical activity include a strong sense of identit y and a powerful sense of community cohesion. Musicis a social glue. It binds people together across the boundaries of cult ure, age and ability.

Whether you listen to this collection alone or with others, be at tuned to those moments in this musicwhen the sun comes out for you, when you see the vista and the light is shining on the whole v alley.

Tina Broad

Tina Broad runs Music: Play for Life, the Music Council of Australia’s national campaign to get moreAustralians making music in schools, communities, everywhere.www.musicplayforlife.org


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Executive Producer Robert Patterson

Mastering Thomas Grubb, Mano Musica

Publications Editor Natalie Shea

Marketing and Catalogue Coordinator Laura Bell

Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd

Cover Photo Orly / Stocksnapper © Veer

ABC Classics thanks Jonathan Villanueva and Virginia Read.

www.abcclassics.com

� 1989 CD2 3; � 1992 CD2 !; � 1997 CD2 8; � 1999 CD1 !, CD2 9; � 2001 CD1 5, CD2 5; � 2002 CD1 2,CD2 4, 0; � 2003 CD1 9; � 2005 CD1 1, 6, CD2 6; � 2007 CD1 4, £; � 2008 CD1 8; � 2009 CD1 7, CD2 1,7; � 2011 CD2 2, @, £; � 2012 CD1 3, 0, @ Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

This compilation was first published in 2012 and any and all copyright in this compilation is owned by the Australian BroadcastingCorporation. � 2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, underexclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, publicperformance or broadcast of this record without the authorit y of the copyright owner is prohibited.


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music mind booklet - buywell.com · to six notes: ‘if i set it up right, that is when the sun...

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