As I stand here in my Dutch kitchen in the sky, I have been reduced to tears, and not for the first time. In my vain attempt to stay in contact with all I hold dear, listening to Radio 3 each morning with Petroc Trelawny and Georgia Mann is a constant source of joy mingled with surprise as they guide the audience through a never-ending cocktail of the best, classical music has to offer.
But why is it that music can move us in ways no other art form can?
The offending piece in question is Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne no. 20 in C sharp minor B49, performed by Livia Rev as part of the daily ‘Slow Moment’ feature. Chopin was a prolific Polish composer who wrote some of the most breath-takingly beautiful piano music ever written. He plunges the depths of emotions, articulating such sadness without the use of words, that at times one is left exhausted.
I listen this morning with vivid recollections of Roman Polanski’s 2002 film The Pianist, uppermost in my mind. After surviving all the horrors of the 2nd World War – the ghetto, starvation and intense cold – The Pianist, based on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman (the Polish-Jewish pianist, composer and Holocaust survivor) concludes with Szpilman returning to his radio station studio and performing this ‘little night music’, a perfect metaphor for all the darkness and horror he and his fellow man endured. No words are needed. The beauty of the music brings with it an intense silence. The unspoken word. But the depth of suffering and intensity of emotion is never in doubt.
The world of music is a world filled with sound; a world where the power of the music takes over and a world where an increasing number find solace, not just as passive participants, but in the actual music-making.
The marvellous work of treasures such as the Wigmore Hall through to Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her Friday-night Kitchen Discos during the pandemic should never be forgotten. They inspired many to turn to those forgotten instruments and dusty piles of music and start making music in the home as our Victorian and Edwardian ancestors did so spectacularly. Sales of new instruments and sheet music boomed in lockdown. In my own house, it provided sanity. Nothing lifts the spirit like an afternoon navigating the Bach Double Violin Concerto with a neighbour.
It is with this in mind that I implore the government of today to take seriously the power of music. The ability of music to lift the soul and allow the soul to sing.
It is no coincidence that in an era when we witness both the abject decline of the Church of England (a topic for another day!) and of quality instrumental teaching in schools, that we see the heartbreakingly endless stream of people desperate for help with their mental health.
Forty (or even thirty years ago) it was perfectly possible for a child, having lessons at school, to reach Grade 8 by the time they are 18, and forty years ago, all of this was free – apart from the exam.
At a time when those in power talk of introducing music for all, instead, government policy for the last twenty years has made music (and more specifically instrumental tuition) more elitist than at any time in the past 50 years where only those with the means and inclination can pay for the tuition required to succeed.
In today’s world, children in state schools are submitted to endless rounds of whole class instrumental lessons bought in by schools to give teachers preparation time, and where children proclaim that after a year’s whole class tuition, they don’t need lessons anymore because they can play an instrument. It is virtually impossible for one teacher to teach the violin properly to a class of 30 young children in a lesson lasting barely an hour. Just tuning all those violins takes some time!
But perhaps more relevant to today’s discussion is the self-esteem and confidence a child gets from having individual or small group music lessons once a week where they have the undivided attention of their teacher, confidence which is translated into every other area of their life.
Peripatetic teachers play a vital role in the well-being of their pupils and are quite often the first person in a school to flag up an issue, whether because the child feels comfortable sharing their problem with the teacher as they have developed a certain degree of trust, or literally because it is so evident in their playing that something is wrong that a conversation is the natural result.
And we must do away with the idea of just funding lessons for those on Pupil Premium. So often the most talented students are from families who simply don’t have the vast amount of money required to have music lessons. If we are to be truly radical and progressive, we should strive for an equal playing field for all because in time, those who are able to, will naturally turn to the private sector and pay for (longer) lessons outside school.
So, I again implore the UK government to increase mental health spending for the young people in our society, but as part of this programme, to think radically and seriously about proper long-term, generous and sustained funding of music services in the UK as a means of improving the mental health of our children. If playing the oboe kept Dame Kate Bingham and her family sane last year, maybe we can provide this same medicine for all our children, and make their souls’ sing.
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