Please briefly state where you would culturally situate your own musical background.

Basically Western European Classical Music.

Do you venture outside of those cultural walls, if so where to?

Yes, if something stirs my interest. This might be into Indian and oriental music, folk as well as Sufi and Ancient Greek.

Do you play any instrument, sing or dance?

I play viola (occasionally in an orchestra) and piano. I have sung in a local variety performing group, though mainly in the chorus.

Did you grow up with music around you, or around the home?

Yes. I was encouraged to take instrumental lessons and join orchestras. I had some classical recordings available and some were bought for me as gifts. Later I was taken

to concerts and operas.

Please relate your first memorable encounter with music, as a listener/dancer/singer/musician.

As listener probably listening to a recording of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto which my parents owned. That said I had heard music on TV, radio etc, and even had some small records before though of nursery rhymes etc. The above concerto is the one that really stirred me as well as reading about it.

As player it was having piano lessons.

How often do you listen to music (at your own initiative)?

Almost daily on the radio or playing my recording collection.

Where do you most often prefer to listen to music?

Usually at home in my room.

What time of the day are you more likely to do so?

Usually evenings.

Which style or musical tradition would that listening experience fit within?

Generally Western classical (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven up to contemporary like Stockhausen) and performers of it. I am a classical recording buff. But I also may venture into jazz, rock, new age and even some music of other cultures such as Indian, Asian etc

Generally speaking or in details, please describe which emotional impacts this listening experience will have on your psyche (/mood).

Generally, I find music either relaxing or uplifting. Some pieces especially and this may also relate to the performer. The effect can carry on for sometimes afterwards. If I go to a concert I am often thinking about it for a few days after.

Which is guiltiest musical pleasure, and why?

Generally more popular or “kitsch” music, because I may feel judged for enjoying it.

Would this latter be enjoyed alone, with other people or animals?

Can be all three.

Which pieces most relate romantic feelings, in your opinion?

Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” his Siegfried Idyll and the Adagietto to Mahler’s 5th Symphony.

In your opinion, which composition is the most spiritually inspiring, be it so-called sacred music or otherwise?

Probably the final section (Chorus Mysticus) from Mahler’s 8th Symphony.

Though the Chaconne from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, Wagner’s Parsifal and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis are near.

Which music piece do you find most irritating, and why?

Can’t think of a specific piece, but generally Christmas songs sung by crooners when “piped though” in shopping malls.

Which music brings on aggressive instincts, and do you know why?

Loud aggressive music from any genre played when I am tired.

On a desert island, which piece of music would you most likely take with you, and why?

Beethoven Violin Concerto sublime and tranquil fist movement are always uplifting. The slow movement always moves me, it’s a place where the phrase “music is the space between the notes” most applies. The final rondo always gets my feet tapping and even makes me want to dance.

If I were to take a recording it would be the one played by Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin’s sublime and intensely spiritual playing seems to get this work just right.

Do you like to associate visual experiences with musical moments? Please elaborate, briefly or otherwise.

Not really, though sometimes I recall parts of pieces of music in response to events. I can’t recall a specific instance, but it does happen.

Which noises bring on feelings of peace and reassurance?

Peace: Generally soft music played by strings.

Reassurance: As well as gentle consoling music sometimes it can also be rousing music. Beethoven’s 7th Symphony has both. The slow movement is sublime in the way it subtly builds to a climax. The other movements are examples that just get me up and want to dance.

Which ones bring on tensions, in your own experience?

Harsh percussive music, electrical instruments and loud music. But there are also times when I can listen to these. It depends also on my mood when I hear it.

In your loneliest hour, what or whom do you listen to?

In terms of composers it would either be Beethoven or Mahler. A number of pieces. Beethoven’s 5th, 7th and 9th Symphonies, his late piano sonatas and quartets and the violin sonatas. Mahler’s 1st, 2nd, 5th Symphonies They are the composers who I most identify with, tough Bach’s instrumental work is also a factor. The pieces by Bach especially the 6th Brandenburg Concerto and the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

But this can also include performers. Leonard Bernstein and Yehudi Menuhin are ones I turn to when feeling lonely. Menuhin especially. I remember a time when I was in hospital and had been diagnosed as a diabetic and feeling miserable. I was in a ward of mainly older people and there had been a death. I put on my Walkman his recording of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto and it was as if he stepped through his tone on the violin to say things are not so bad and will get better.

Anxiety relief: which are your Top 5 most relaxing pieces of music?

1 being the most, 5 the least.

1.    Beethoven Violin Concerto.

2.    Mahler Adagietto from Symphony No 5

3.    Debussy Prelude a l’apres midi d’une faune

4.    Liszt Consolation

5.    Bach Brandenburg Concerto No 6

As a listener, who is your favourite composer, and why?

Beethoven because of both the reflectiveness in is slow movements and the drama. Also the variety of forms he excelled (symphonies, choral, chamber, his opera) in makes him for me one of the most exiting composers and the one who had the most to say.

Listening exercise:

Suite Gothique Boellmann https://vimeo.com/110654524 Toccata, Op.25

Following the encounter with the above piece, please describe (as best as you can, but as briefly or extensively as you wish):

Your personal emotional journey as incurred by the piece.

How the music brought personal life events to your conscious mind.

How the composition brought to memory scenes from motion pictures, or from TV productions. Please elaborate.

How the piece brought to your conscious mind, famous historic or cultural events. Please describe.

 

I can’t say the music brought many memories personal or film, apart from at one point reminding myself of the Monty Python “Blackmail” sketch where there is an organ used. Visually I was more aware of the organist and his page tuner, and movements of hands and feet (I have once or twice played an organ and in that it reminded me of the names of the keyboards and pedal techniques).

Musically I was tapping my feet from about 30 seconds in, feeling a pulse. My head started nodding, and I started to move my hands conducting. The beat stayed with me at even afterwards. The piece I found happy and uplifting. I felt immersed in the sound.