Classical Music and Mental Health

 

 

 

Featured here is a picture of composer Felix Mendelssohn's study. It offers a glimpse into the working environment of the great artist - how simple, uncluttered and modest this room is! What it doesn't show is the how unbelievably difficult the life of a classical music composer must have been back then. We don't really know the realities of putting pen to paper, the daily grind of coming up with new pieces of music, the mental strain this hallowed art form places on its creatives. 

 

 

Felix Mendelssohn

 

Felix Mendelssohn (born in 1809) was dead aged 38, a few months short of his 39th birthday, succumbing to a fatal brain hemorrhage after a series of strokes. Six months earlier, his beloved sister Fanny died in a similar fashion. Despite being raised in a comfortable, middle-class household, Felix Mendelssohn suffered from nervous exhaustion caused by overwork. His predicament is a familiar one for those of us who've dabbled in classical music as a career. The art form itself is a massive, sprawling one with an imposing history, which leaves many of us striving (as Mendelssohn did) to follow in the footsteps of the great composers like Mozart and Beethoven. Actually, even Mozart and Beethoven felt intimidated by the weight of this legacy, and they too endured unspeakable traumas in the course of their lives. Mozart, like Mendelssohn, died in his thirties, and left so little money behind, his widow Constanze could not afford a proper burial or funeral - he's famously buried in an unmarked grave. Beethoven's suffering on account of his hearing loss and eventual deafness is well known - his ability to keep going after experiencing suicidal depression is a remarkable victory of the human spirit in times of crisis and distress. Across classical music's rich history, there are many other stories of ill health and suffering: Frédéric Chopin, a colleague who admired Felix Mendelssohn greatly and who wrote almost exclusively for the piano also died shortly before his fortieth birthday, while Robert Schumann suffered serious mental illness for most of his adult life, and died aged just 46, in a psychiatric hospital. Nowadays, classical music is mostly written about as a force of good: since the Mozart Effect neuroscience study of the 1990s, we've seen a  burgeoning field of research which asserts that listening to, and playing classical music has a range of health benefits spanning increased concentration and focus, to improved mood, to helping rehabilitate stroke sufferers. What's unclear is whether performing classical music to a professional standard has the same benefits. On the one hand, the research is overwhelmingly supportive of classical music's health benefits, but on the other hand, there's also a number of studies (and personal testimonials) which state that pursuing classical music as a career could prove to be potentially toxic and traumatic. 

 

 For me personally, the heroes and heroines of classical music who've suffered for their art sound a cautionary tale. I too suffered mental health challenges when I was a classical pianist and recitalist, stemming from the lack of stability and security on the one hand, and the overcompetitive, perfectionistic nature of the professional arena on the other. Actually, during my training in a conservatoire, I experienced severe anxiety and depression at having to achieve excellent results in a learning environment that emphasised perfectionism at the expense of emotional and psychological well being. I had a piano professor comment casually 'you're from India, what could you possibly know about playing Chopin?', while around me, students from predominantly upper-middle class homes wore their musical talents as a badge of honour. My confidence was quickly shattered, and I vowed never to pursue a degree in piano performance. The only saving grace of my conservatoire education were my music theory and music history classes: they ensured I learned more about the actual music being taught than merely how to play all the right notes. Subsequently, in my twenties, I dabbled in being a concert pianist. I did a few local and national piano competitions, and enjoying participating in those, organised a few concerts of my own, with my private piano pupils in tow. Within a couple of years, I became increasingly stressed and depressed. Outwardly, I appeared enthusiastic about my craft, inwardly, I was becoming increasingly erratic and unstable, with difficulty sleeping, and unable to make a proper living from concerts. How did anyone do this as a full-time job, I wondered. Following a working-holiday in Toronto, I returned to Ireland, vowing I'd never play as a concert soloist again. A few years later, I had the opportunity to attend university as a mature student, and when I graduated a year later with a Masters in Musicology, I was much happier professionally and personally - approaching classical music through books and articles, rather than only through the daily grind of piano practice - proved a much better fit.

 

Over the past many years, I've found that classical music does help (my) mental health, but only when I adopt a light touch approach and don't turn it into my raison d'etre. Unlike the goal-obsessed arena of classical piano, which is more like a competitive sport than a creative art form, playing the piano in private has certainly improved my overall sense of well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world was locked down, and when classical concerts took place entirely online, without live audiences, I decided to learn Bach's Goldberg Variations, which I recorded with my phone camera, and shared with friends and family on Facebook. I credit Bach with helping me finally finish my PhD, which was on the music of 1980s synthpop band Erasure. Everytime I learned a variation and recorded it, I wrote a portion of my thesis, and this combination ensured success at a time when shops and cafes were shut, leaving me with very few outlets. 

 

I realised during Covid, that I didn't care if I ever played the piano in public again - the ritual of the classical piano recital was something I (an Indian woman who grew up in the chaos of India) could never fully adjust to. The emphasis on note perfection over spontaneous creation and improvisation made me miserable as a musician, and I longed for a time when I could play for myself, without worrying about being judged as inferior, or being labelled an 'amateur'. 

 

The music being learned and performed (the 'repertoire') was something I absolutely loved, but I couldn't really enjoy learning and playing it, as there were so many rules and regulations about what makes a classical pianist a pro. The idea that I only wanted to play the music of a few composers (Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Scarlatti) as opposed to the heavyweight virtuoso music of Liszt and Rachmaninoff is something that's not really accepted in professional classical music circles, where pianists are expected to perform as much repertoire as they can, including and especially the most difficult works. 

 

Developing a practice schedule using just a lightweight Yamaha keyboard helped me break away from the tyranny of the classical piano ritual, with its aggressively loud sound palette and its overcomplicated performance codes. Mine was a playful kind of piano practice, and I soon became comfortable in my own skin, finding joy in sight-reading new pieces everyday, and not overpracticing any one piece to some technically flawless standard. I also began to visit the local community music center, which does have a grand piano and a few upright pianos with a view to taking the piano practice out of the house, and into a third space. My concentration and focus (which was at an all time low in my twenties) improved considerably as I approached my fortieth birthday - I was able to record live takes from my piano practice sessions and share them on Instagram. My aim was to show different aspects of classical piano playing, with a special emphasis on sight-reading, something you don't really see on a professional concert pianist's social media feeds.

 

Ultimately, I realised I was one of the luckier ones who'd escaped the life of a classical virtuoso! Aware of this music's link to my moods (one minute, an energetic Mozart piece could lift my spirits, another minute, a tragic Chopin piece could induce tears), I seek out new and interesting pieces each day that genuinely interest me. Some weeks, I only play sporadically, engaging at the keyboard with forgotten works by women composers. Other weeks, I take my music practice out of the house and to the community center, feeling energised and calm after a meditative morning of playful, keyboard pyrotechnics. 

 

 Conscious of the tragically-short lives of my favourite classical composers, I approach classical music much more cautiously, engaging in piano-playing more as a side hobby than as a primary pursuit. When I find myself becoming too preoccupied with the piano, I take a break of a few weeks, considering myself lucky that my life and livelihood no longer depend on it. I'm especially wary of saying 'yes' to playing in public, even with an amateur ensemble or musician, since the stress and strain of performing live in front of an audience is much the same for me, whether the event is a casual, community-based one or a black-tie classical concert. Not everyone understands: people generally assume that if you're talented at music, it must mean you love playing in public. I've received a few pushbacks from people who don't agree with my stance on performing and who don't relate at all to my anxiety around playing in front of live audiences (of random strangers!). The idea that classically-trained musicians must always share their craft is equally problematic for me personally. As I've said here, the therepeutic benefits of classical music don't always apply to the musician playing this music, who has to commit a vast amount of music to memory, and who has to ensure its executed accurately and to a high standard. Viewed from this perspective, the stories of classical composers remind us musicians about the importance of stepping back from this venerated artistic practice, so that we don't struggle under the weight of the genre's expectations, and so that we're able to enjoy this music privately, without enduring poor mental health.