Music for difficult times
Here is a keyworker point of view on music choices in corona times. When enclosed in PPE in a COVID-19 lab for hours, my memory is my source of musical therapy. Having spent the last 20 years in amateur orchestras, there is quite an array of music floating around in my head. I keep coming back to Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, particularly the contrast between the third and fourth movements. The theme opening that heart-wrenching fourth movement is a composite of notes contributed to by different sections – no single instrument has the whole melody. On a tiring day in the lab, it occurred to me that our contribution to the effort is much like this – only when combined with the work of others does it make sense. In contrast, when I get home, I play Beethoven – once a composer I didn’t understand, now the structural and melodic beauty both fascinates and calms me. The middle movements of the Pathétique and Moonlight sonatas and the Andante favori in F spring to mind. Perfect antidotes to a crazy day behind the front line.
Joanna Baxter, Cambridgeshire