- There are three things that I think a lecture on love and music should at least mention, even in passing."Romeo and Juliet.""Tristan and Isolde" And 1967s, "Summer of Love." Crucially, I don't intend to deal with the distinction between in Eros as desire-based love and Agape as self-sacrificial love. Although you might wish to decide as we go along, which of the musical examples exhibits either Eros or Agape or possibly even both. Over the years, music has been offered as a love token from composers to the objects of their affection. The Austro-Bohemian composer, Gustav Mahler, for instance, wrote the "Adagietto" of his "Fifth Symphony" for Alma Schindler whom he was soon to marry. They met in November, 1901, Mahler was 41, Alma was 22. Less than four months later, they were married and Alma was already pregnant. Mahler's celebrated "Adagietto" is a love song without words, and was written about and for Alma. As you can see, here's Mahler addressing Alma."My ray of sun, I cannot tell you with words,"how I love you."I can only declare my longing, my love and my bliss." The other four movements of my Mahler's "Fifth Symphony" are for orchestra. But the "Adagietto" is for the much more intimate orchestration of just strings and harp. Here's the opening of Mahler's "Adagietto" from a recording made in 1926, making it one of the earliest electrical recordings. The music is performed here with love.(gentle orchestral music) The Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg conducting Mahler's "Adagietto" on 78 RPM discs in 1926 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Mahler had written a love poem for Alma, which Mengelberg copied into his conducting score of Mahler's, "Fifth Symphony.""Wie ich dich liebe, How I love you." And these German words written by Mahler fit the tune of the "Adagietto."(sings in foreign language) So in its orchestral version, Mahler's "Adagietto" is much more than a symphonic movement. It's a song without words, indeed, a love song without words. The Czech composer Leos Janacek gave the nickname, "Intimate Letters" to his, "Second String Quartet." Janacek wrote the string quartet for Kamila Stosslova, a woman 38 years Janacek's junior. In spite of both of them being married, Kamila and Leos exchanged more than 700 letters over a decade. And in 1928, the last year of Janacek's life, the composer wrote to Kamila almost every day. Of his "Second String Quartet" he to Kamila that she was, quote, "Behind every note, you living, forceful, loving,"those notes of mine kiss all of you."They call for you passionately."(gentle upbeat orchestral music) Within a year, Janacek died with Kamila at his side. at the other end of love's timeline, Benjamin Britten wrote the"Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo" near the beginning of his relationship with the singer Peter Pears. It was the first music that Ben wrote specifically for Peter to sing. And each of the seven songs deals with an aspect of love. Here's the end of the seventh and final song of the cycle,"Michelangelo's Sonnet 24" as set by Benjamin Britten.(sings in foreign language) Tenor, Peter Pears and pianist, the composer, Benjamin Britten, The piano finishes the last song of the cycle without the voice. The composer has the final say at the piano and the singer falls silent. Indeed in all seven songs, Britten includes a piano coder for himself to play. The longest of which is the one that ends the final song. However, in life, it was the other way around. And so Peter Pears survived Lord Britten by almost 10 years. So where did the association between love and music begin? Presumably with mating calls in nature and fertility songs. On a more tender level with lullabies, which are a parents love song to a baby. The earliest surviving love song dates from around 3,000 years ago. It's a Mesopotamian love poem in Sumerian. It's called the, "Love-song of Shu-Sin." Shu-Sin was a king of Ur. And its music doesn't survive. The Bible's great love poem, "The Song of Solomon" possibly dates from the third century BCE. Again, no music survives that might have been associated with its original Hebrew text, but many musical settings of passages from "The Song of Solomon" have been and composed over the last half millennium. Here's one such by the 16th century, Flemish composer, Jacobus Clemens, "Ego flo campi." The woman begins,"I am merely a flower of the field, a lily of the valley." The man replies,"My darling, when compared to other young women,"you are a rose among thorns."You are a garden spring,"a fountain of pure water, refreshing streams,"which flow down from Libanus." And the new music pours out in waves of amorous polyphony. At the end of Clemens' motet, the gently undulating music specifically depicts water flowing down from Libanus. Clemens uses a resonant seven-voice texture for this amorous passage. More usual in continental polyphony of the 16th century, might be a four or five voice texture. Six voices gives a generous sound while seven voices, as here, is especially lush. And the motet culminates in a particularly sensuous final cadence. You have to wait until the end of the 19th century to experience a similar kind of tenderness as a cadence in unaccompanied vocal music. If you want to follow the lowest part from this seven-voice motet, then the extract begins at the red line.(speaks in foreign language)"The waters which flow down from Libanus."(sings in foreign language) The late 12th century poem, Tristan und Iseult by the Alsatian, Gottfried von Strassburg, is a chivalric romance. It became the basis of Richard Wagner's 1850s music drama,"Tristan und Isolde." The opening musical phrase of Wagner's"Tristan und Isolde" has become a staple element in the discussion of 19th century European music. The first chord of the prelude is known as the Tristan chord. The opening three notes form the grief motif and the next chord, the Tristan chord, begins the longing motif.(gentle piano music) Over four hours of through composed music, the story unfolds, Tristan, a Cornish knight travels to Ireland to escort princess Isolde to Cornwall so that she may marry Tristan's uncle King Mark. On the journey to England Tristan and Isolde drink a love potion thinking it, the elixir of death. Both wanted to end their lives, Tristan, because he had killed Isolde's previous fiance and wished to atone. Isolde also wanted to end her miserable existence. But the love potion does its magic and the per as adulterous relationship ensues until Tristan is mortally wounded by one of King Mark's soldiers. Isolde then sings her heart out and dies.(gentle music)(sings in foreign language) That passage is often referred to as the "Liebestod, Love Death." It was named "Liebestod" by the Hungarian composer pianist Franz Liszt who later became Wagner's father-in-law. But this climax was referred to by Wagner himself as, "Verklarung, Transfiguration." The composer Gerard McBurney describes the final scene of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" as an extraordinarily cenesthetic experience,"Tristan's blood flows from his body"and the smell of the blood becomes floral to Isolde."Isolde feels flowers embracing her body"and the flowers become melody."Smell, hearing, sight and touch combine"so that one can physically taste Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk,"Total Artwork." On a smaller scale, Wagner wrote the "Siegfried Idyll" as a birthday present to Cosima, his second wife, upon the birth of their son Siegfried. The "Siegfried Idyll" is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra. It was originally scored for chamber orchestra because the 13 players had to fit onto the stairs of the Wagner's Villa in Lucerne. Cosima woke up to a surprise live performance of the "Siegfried Idyll" given just outside her bedroom on Christmas day of 1870. Here it is in its revised version for full orchestra.(gentle orchestral music) What a great Secret Santa that must have been. Wagner claims that he conceived the main theme six years earlier at the moment when he, Wagner and Cosima, consummated their relationship. In the event Wagner seems to have been overstating the case, and the theme seems to have been devised, not in the summer of 1864, but in the autumn of that year, while Wagner was on his own and not with Cosima at all, but that's not such a good love story. Claude Debussy, like any European composer growing up in the late 19th century was captivated by the music of Wagner. An obvious example is the beginning of Debussy's song cycle,"Fetes Galantes, Courtship Parties." In 1882 Debussy's song cycle appeared in manuscript with a dedication to a Madam Vasnier an amateur soprano."Songs that have only ever lived by her"and which will lose their graceful charm,"if they never pass through her melodious fairy mouth." The married, Marie-Blanche Vasnier was Debussy's first love. Marie-Blanche was 16 years her husband's junior and 14 years older than the 18-year-old Debussy. During their affair, Debussy wrote the alluring, green-eyed redhead, more than 20 songs. See here, "En sourdine, Muted" from that cycle, "Fetes Galantes." See the manuscript on the left. The song originally began with a Debussyan trademark,"Chord of the ninth.""Let this calm twilight penetrate our love with deep quiet."(gentle piano music) Debussy wrote to Madam Vasnier,"These songs conceived by your memory"can only belong to you as their composer belongs to you." By its second version in 1891, see on the right, "En sourdine" opened the cycle, but the dedication had been changed to Miss. Catherine Stevens, with whom Debussy was by then in love. I know that's not what it says, stay with me. The music had totally changed. So at least the love token wasn't just straight re-gifted. In the rewrite, the opening chord for Catherine Stevens had become Wagner's Tristan chord transposed up octave. To refresh your memory, here's the opening of Wagner's Tristan.(gentle piano music) Now take that Tristan chord and transpose it up one octave.(gentle piano music) And that high Tristan chord begins the revised version of Debussy's, "En sourdine."(gentle piano music) When the song was published, 21 years after it had been written for the lovely Marie-Blanche, it had been dedicated for a third time to the wife of Robert Godet, as you can see. Godet was one of Debussy's oldest and most faithful friends. Amongst other things, they had shared a love of Wagner's music drama, "Parsifal." But Debussy struggled with Wagner's pervasive influence. And Debussy began actively to set about ridding his music of Wagner's arch-romantic German style. And in the final movement of Debussy's,"Children's corner suite" Debussy cruelly parodied the opening of Wagner's,"Tristan und Isolde." Debussy mockingly asks the pianist to play with great emotion and then proceeds to parody Wagner's music. Debussy jazzes up the Tristan chord itself and follows it with a musical cackle of derisive laughter. The gesture is then repeated, just in case the object of Debussy's spite has not been properly appreciated.(gentle upbeat piano music) Wagner's great love story is entirely demeaned by Debussy. It's served up as piano music fit to be performed by a child and dedicated to Debussy's three year old daughter. Debussy's complicated response to Wagner's music was perhaps the very definition of a love-hate relationship. Of all Shakespeare's plays, "Romeo and Juliet" a story of star-crossed lovers is the one that accounts for more love inspired music than any other. The French composer Hector Berlioz wrote a choral symphony in the late 1830s, which was inspired by seeing Anglo-Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, onstage as Juliet in Paris. In the late 19th century, Tchaikovsky wrote an orchestral fantasy overture. Another Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, wrote a ballet in the mid 20th century. And in Leonard Bernstein's spinoff, "West Side Story" set in mid 1950s, New York, the heartstrings of the listener are tugged every which way. So here's a "Romeo and Juliet" musical summary in one minute.(sings in foreign language)(gentle orchestral music) Maria I've just kissed a girl named Maria And suddenly I've found How wonderful a sound can be- And there are many, many more. The symbolist play, "Pelleas & Melisande" also ends with the death of both of the lovers. written in the early 1890s by the Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck,"Pelleas & Melisande" became the basis for a number of musical settings composed over the next decade and a half. First was Gabriel Faure's"Incidental Music" for an 1898 English language production of the play in London. In fact, Claude Debussy had been approached for the London project before Faure, but turned the commission down on the grounds that he was already busy adapting the play into an opera. Indeed Debussy's opera was premiered in Paris in early 1902. And around that time, the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg began work on a symphonic poem. The composer Richard Strauss had suggested the subject matter to Schoenberg but neither seemed aware of the existence of Debussy's new opera. And within three years, Jean Sibelius had composed"Incidental Music" for a Swedish language production of the play at the Swedish Theater in Helsinki. So here's seven years of "Pelleas & Melisande" in 50 seconds.(gentle upbeat orchestral music) The list of film scores concerned with depicting love is a long one. In 1970, "Love Story" the Hollywood classic was shunned by leading actors, Jeff and Beau Bridges, Michael Douglas, Jon Voight and Michael York. Ryan O'Neal eventually played opposite Ali MacGraw and the film's main musical theme, by the late Francis Lai won the French composer a well-earned Oscar.(gentle piano music) Over 50 years later, not only does the "Love Story" theme remain close to the public's heart, but the melody's opening interval has become on an educational tool in identifying a descending minor sixth."Shakespeare In Love" also earned its composer an Oscar. Stephen Warbeck picked up his Academy Award in 1999. Mark Norman's story, fictionalizes Shakespeare falling in love while writing "Romeo and Ethel." And Warbeck's score integrates modern and period musical instruments.(gentle upbeat music) The music for "Shakespeare In Love" is a far cry from the ostentatiously star-studded montage of songs that comprises the score of, "Love Actually." Much of the narrative is played out to the accompaniment of hits by the Beach Boys, Mariah Carey, Otis Redding, Eva Cassidy, Joni Mitchell, Nora Jones, Phil Collins and others. But those songs are woven together by a beguiling memorable original score, composed by Craig Armstrong for this 2003 modern classic. And as every film director knows, the score is important, not just to support the action within the film itself, but thereafter as a recognition trigger. You may not be able or to recall the music to "Love Actually" just yet, but as soon as you hear it, you'll know it's, "Love Actually."(gentle music) As I discussed in the first lecture in this series,"Nostalgia and Music" the older among us are gifted with an involuntary reminiscence bump. The reminiscence bump is the tendency for people over 40 to have increased and enhanced recollection of events that occurred during adolescents and early childhood, early adulthood. The sweet spot is at 13-years-old for girls and 14-years-old for boys. Occurring right at my own reminiscence bump in 1975 is 10 cc's, "I'm Not In Love." But, "I'm Not In Love" had to fight hard to be released at all. The song was originally written as a guitar-based Bossa Nova, composed mostly by Eric Stewart with some input from Graham Gouldman. The other two band members, Kevin Godley and Laurence Creme had a Visceral aversion to the song, and the Bossa version was erased, no recording of it survives. But because the office staff carried on singing the song after its cancellation, by Godley and Creme, it was resurrected. But with a wall of sound vocal backing as conceived by Kevin Godley. Lol Creme suggested using tape loops, the influence of the Beatles' "Revolution 9" of seven years earlier. So one of the late 20th century's iconic pop songs was resurrected, having been given up for dead."I'm Not In Love" reached number one in the UK charts, and number two in the US. Here is that wall of sound.(gentle upbeat music) I'm not in love So don't forget it It's just a silly phase I'm going through(gentle upbeat music) And just because I call you up(gentle upbeat music) Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made I'm not in love No no It's because(gentle upbeat music)- In spite of the way that the lyrics might superficially read, this is a love song, and it was written for Eric Stewart's wife, Gloria. In 1975, the couple had been married for nine years, now it's been 55 years, it turns out they are in love after all.(audience laughs) Let's stick with 1975, my reminisce bump. Another 1975 heterosexually influenced song was Queen's "Love Of My Life." The Ballard was written by Freddie Mercury for Mary Austin, who Mercury met in 1969. Freddie became engaged to Mary in 1973 and the engagement stayed afloat through the next three years before foundering. Mercury was famously gay, but he never actually came out publicly. There was no real need, certainly by the late 1970s, it was obvious. While Mary Austin and Mercury never actually married, Mercury said of Austin that,"To me, she was my common-law wife."To me it was marriage." Moreover Freddie said, "I couldn't fall in love with a man,"the same way I have with Mary."All my male lovers asked me why they couldn't replace Mary,"but it's simply impossible." Love of my life, don't leave me You've taken my love And now desert me Love of my life, can't you see Please bring it back Bring it back, bring it back Don't take it away from me Because you don't know What it means to me- Composers often have colorful biographies and in particular they often have colorful love lives. Perhaps that's why perspective fathers-in-law often seem frequently to object to the idea of their daughters marrying musicians. Edward Elgar was given a poem by one of his piano pupils, Alice Roberts, who was almost nine years the composer's senior. Elgar duly set, "The Wind at Dawn" to music. And Elgar, by now hooked, followed it up with a piece for violin and piano,"Salut d'Amour, Love's Greeting." Which he offered to Alice as an engagement present.(gentle music) Alice may have bagged Elgar, but she was immediately disinherited by her family. Elgar was nine years younger than his wife, whereas Schumann was nine years older than his."Kreisleriana" an eight movement composition for solo piano was composed by Schumann in just four days, when he and Clara were deliriously in love. Schumann wrote that, "I want to dedicate it to you,"yes, to you and nobody else."And then you will smile so sweetly"when you discover yourself in it." However Clara's father Friedrich was strongly opposed to their union and the matter was taken to court. In the event, Robert and Clara won the case and were married the day before Clara's 21st birthday, on the 12th of September, 1840. Dedications come and go, as we know from Debussy. And Schumann's "Kreisleriana" was ultimately dedicated to the Polish composer and virtuoso pianist, Frederic Chopin, who seems not to have rated it. Actually, it was worse than that, Chopin said that he like the design of the title page. Now that is damning with faint praise.(audience laughs) But it is love music of a particularly acute, indeed, bipolar type, music that contrasts the impulsive and the dreamy side of Schumann's nature.(upbeat piano music) The end of the seventh movement of Schumann's "Kreisleriana" written for his wife, Clara. After Schumann breakdown and eventual demise, Clara Schumann became ever closer to the much younger composer Johannes Brahms. But however much they were in love with each other, they never consummated their relationship, far less contemplated marriage. Brahms wrote his six piano pieces of 1893, for Clara. The second of which is the achingly beautiful,"Intermezzo" in A.(gentle piano music) Achingly beautiful and so poignant, made all the more personal because the piano was the main instrument, both of Brahms and of Clara Schumann. Within four years they were both dead. They died within a year of each other, Clara first. Music seems particularly able to portray not just the intensity of love, but its many manifestations and functions. For instance, as an engagement present. Robert Schumann's, "Kreisleriana." Mahler's, "Adagietto" and Elgar's, "Salut d'Amour." As a late-life offering of unrequited love, Brahms' A major, "Intermezzo" and Janacek's, "Second String Quartet." As a piece for lovers to perform together, Brittens, "Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo." Or ancient love songs from to Mesopotamia or from the Old Testament. Or medieval love songs such as those by the trouveur of Northern France or the troubadours of Southern France, or the minnesinger and the meistersinger of Germany. Or a medieval romance taken by Wagner and reworked as a music drama on a vast scale. Or the many unvaried musical responses to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" or Maeterlinck's, "Pelleas & Melisande." And love songs from any number of composers, not to mention pop songs, folk ballads and film scores. Anything from a two-minute song to a four-hour opera. And not just vocal music, but instrumental music, much of it, essentially songs without words. And that's not even to touch on music as a vehicle for religious and spiritual love. Here's the crux, I think, love's greatest gift is its intangibility as is music's. Here at Gresham, I've sometimes tried to explain the construction of various chords and melodies in an attempt to reveal the composer's craft and music's effect on the listener. But to describe a chord, for instance, as a chord of the seventh, 11th or 13th, for instance, might help one to appreciate its technical function, but it doesn't come close to describing the effect that hearing that chord might have on one's body and mind. In the same way, love can't be explained solely by recourse to description of physical and mental characteristics. For this lecture, I've chosen music that I love, and that speaks to me personally, that's been my main criterion. Any narrative that I've applied to the presentation of the musical examples has been superficial at best and contrived at worst. And then there's the all important question of time and place, that's to say the context in which we ourselves are exposed to certain pieces of music. One important context is manifested by the reminiscent bump. The realization that the music that we hear, in our early teens, shapes us in some very important ways. So those of us responsible for bringing up and or educating children through music should surely take extra cultural care with children in their early teens. The music that they hear then might have more of an effect on their adult development than we might like to admit. In particular, youth orchestras, youth choirs, residential music courses, outreach products, et cetera, are all breeding grounds for empathy and love. My first residential orchestral course was in Suffolk in 1974, one year before the peak of my reminiscence bump. I got to play the music of Olivier Messiaen, for the first time, the music of Prokofiev, for the first, and crucially the music of Wagner, for the first time. Not only did I get to play under the dynamic Baton of Stewart Bedford, but I also got to wave at Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears who attended the final concert in the Snape Maltings. The peak of my daughter's reminiscent bump will be in 2029. I doubt that I'll be able to resist the temptation to expose her to a rich variety of musical experiences, seven years from now. My parental helicopter will be flying low over the BBC, "Proms" for instance, assuming that "The Proms" is still adequately funded by then. Or is it unwelcome cultural engineering to try to influence the reminiscent bump of young people in one's charge? I'll finish by saying just this, to my mind, love and music have one very important feature in common, neither them is or should be regarded as a luxury. Love and music are fundamental to our wellbeing and the combination of the two is nothing less than life affirming. Thank you.(audience applauds)- "Given that love has been such a common subject"for compositions already for hundreds of years,"do you think that love songs can be overdone"or that audiences/composers may one day"lose interest in listening to or writing love songs?"- Could you say the end bit again?- "Do you think that love songs can be overdone"or that audiences, composers may one day lose interest"in listening-to/writing love songs?- Yeah, they can. I mean, to be honest, I mean, as I've said, I chose those pieces and tried to weave there, because they're all pieces that are very important to me. I mean, there are millions of others I could have chosen. But I fully understand that actually some of those examples would seem to be overblown by other listeners, other people. I don't think everybody has exactly the same response. And that's the point because of our sort of, our cultural upbringing and this reminiscent bump thing, you know, we all have a different approach to it. But I think in the principle of a love song as a genre, can't possibly go out of date. I mean, love's going to be around and so is music. So it can't possibly go out of date, but yeah, of course they're very, very overdone. I mean, I'm going to be outspoken that I think probably the favorite extract that I've played here is the Schoenberg, "Pelleas & Melisande" which many people regard as just totally over the top, it's ridiculous sort of German expressionism of the early 20th century, which I particularly love, but other people I think would find sort of dripping with, well almost in sincerity, certainly overblown. So I think we do all have a different response and that's what I've been trying to get at. And in the end, I haven't been able to get at anything technical that actually you can say,"That makes for a good love song." Not particularly, because people's response are different. But I think sort of at an emotional level, the idea of a love song is, we all understand what it is, but we all have our different examples of that, but it's never going to go out of fashion, the concept of a love song, but practically everything I've played today, probably some of it has already gone out of fashion and the rest of it will very shortly if it hasn't already.- Okay. One more, "A friend who played in a dance band in the '70s." This is a question about the reminiscent bump."A friend who played in a dance band in the '70s,"said that they gauged the average age of the audience"and played from when they were in their late teens."Does this fit in with the reminiscence bump?"- That they were playing music to people in their late teens? Yeah. Well it almost does, but it seems, I mean, you're still part of the reminiscence bump in your late teens, as I say for, for girls, the peak is 13 and for boys it's 14. So if you're playing to late teenagers, it's still going to go in, in a way that it's much more readily than it is 10 years after that. So yeah, it's a good thing to play to teenagers, but I say the thing that worries me and now that I've been made aware of it for the last few years and thinking about it, thinking about the effect that it had on me. And that lecture in September when I was absolutely, I could not believe when I looked at "The Proms" program for 1975, there it all was, all my favorite music. And I had no idea until I looked back at the programs, which blissfully are all online, that actually I'd been exposed to that music, absolutely the height of my reminiscence bump. And I was myself, as I've said, very gratefully, I was completely controlled by the BBC "Proms" in 1975. So it does seem to be a good, well, if you believe you are doing a good thing, then yes, you should address the teenagers in your audience, it's going to have enough effect on them. But it's also a huge, this is what I'm realizing now, t's a huge responsibility. If you do have young people in front of you, as I do from time to time, with a little girl, bringing up, the responsibility that you have, I think, is extraordinary. Surely we must take, I don't know exactly what you can do about it and you know, we all, I'm sure, have different ideas about the sort of music that girls and boys in their early teenage years should listen to. I mean, well, I've made it perfectly clear this really, everything I play, that's what I think's good. Some of it in my own reminiscence bump as well. So yeah, addressing teenagers is, as always, we've always known that it's important, of course that's school education, isn't it? But this reminiscent bump thing for me is just, as I say, particularly with my daughter who will hit it in sort of nine years time, I'm already getting set for exactly that year of culture.(all laughing) Poor thing.- Okay, thank you. So just to give like a little bit of context into like my question, so on my 17th birthday, which is like last Friday, my girlfriend got me a gift. It wasn't a beautiful composition, unfortunately, but it was a book by Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche was really inspired by Wagner. So like, something that really got to me was like towards the end of your lecture, where you're talking about, like, contextual information into music. So the thing with Wagner was he basically said,"You know, my music can't be understood now,"my music's for the future." And Nietzsche was kind of inspired by this. So do you think there's certain music which provokes on emotions, which kind of transcend that idea of time, that can only be in the future?'Cause like, music I've listened to in like, my childhood I never understood lyrics until like now, so.- It is interesting. So the basic trend of what you're saying is, does some music have to bed down? Is that what you're saying? Does some music have to wait for it to be appreciated?- Yes.- Yeah. I think, I think it really does. And this is the real thing that worries me. I mean, just I'll come back to what you're saying, but I'm thinking about the next lecture in this series, which is, "Music and Humor." And it's the same with, "Music and Love" as it was the same with,"Music and Nostalgia." The fact is, what constitutes these things? What constitutes humor and what constitutes nostalgia? And what do people recognize as something that's love? And it is very different if, you know, what's the context of a musical joke? What's the concept of tugging at the heartstrings? And what I'd really love to find, and by playing the examples I have done, I think these are examples that I think have elements to them that mean that they actually can transcend their particular presence and actually have a life that lives there after, I couldn't possibly tell you what that is, except I think that all of the music that I played is absolutely genuinely from the heart. Some of it more than others, but all of it I chose because I genuinely believe that whatever the composers were, and of course Wagner's a very tricky character because, you know, I think that's a, we'll move on, but that's a massive understatement. But in terms of the music, it does have a longevity. And I think it has a sort of a equality about it. I mean, obviously some people can't enjoy it because of the man and of his context. But I rejoice the fact that he actually does have a life above and beyond that. It's very uncomfortable, but I do try to get over that. So yes, I do think, if the question is, what is it that enables something to have a shelf life that's longer than just a few years at the top of the charts, or orchestras playing it? I've absolutely no idea. But I do think that the composer, genuinely feeling those feelings. I mean, we can all write. And that's where I think a lot of film music is wonderful, but it can actually be tied to a time and a place and doesn't always live. The examples that I gave here are ones that I think do actually transcend their context. So yeah, I think, I mean, because I deal primarily in classical music, I suppose my life is bent on performing music that I'm keeping alive. Exactly that. And I choose, I think, fairly carefully the music that I perform, so much of it obviously, the music I perform is music for whatever reason I think has, you know, it's past the test of time. And I feel that I can interpret it in 2022, even though it's written, let's say in 1550, like the Clemens' motet. So, yeah, I think there is, some pieces have a longer shelf life and those are the pieces that I tried to identify here, as to what makes it, I don't know. I think you just have to avoid, I mean, obviously you want to make references to where you are and the sort of person you are,'cause it wouldn't be ideal to sort of try to take yourself out of your own context, but you do need in some way, not just to respond to everything that's around you and try and think more deeply. And I'm off at a tangent here, but I remember that when BBC Radio 3 played the entire works of Beethoven over, I think it was 10 days or whatever. And in Beethoven you realize that there's stuff that we really don't particularly want to listen to. It's actually not very good. I'll be shot for that in the face, but it's not. And what's the stuff that's not very good? The stuff that absolutely was of his time, where he was fighting his political battles, where he was, you know, supporting those causes in music that he really believed in, other music, which transcends that actual sort of, I mean, he was genuine about it, absolutely genuine about it, but it doesn't work outside the context and to us, it's sort of, it's posturing really. So yeah, it's a difficult one, isn't it? And you have somehow root yourself in where you are otherwise it's not honest, but to provide music and indeed to set words or to write words that are going to stand the test of time. Yeah.- Were there any other questions? I think there's one at the back. Actually let's take these last two and then we'll have to end.- [Student] Do you suppose there's a universal intrinsic love language that's inbuilt? And do you suppose that's in humans and in animals? Because you mentioned animals mating, how, for example, do birds know how to make love songs?- Yeah, I deliberately, I wanted to do a section on exactly that, because presumably bird song is the earliest love music that there is, unfortunately I don't know enough about it. I'm not a zoologist, I'm not an anthropologist. And so I decided just to swerve that one. But what was the, the basis of your?- [Student] I wondered if there's a universal intrinsic love language? For example, some of the music, I know this was quite dissonant, I could hear some sort of dry tones and some of it was quite lush. So, I mean, I wouldn't expect a dissonant music to be love songy. And some of it was quite twee, which was a bit over the top. But is there something that would universally speak as the love song?- Well, I think you've put your mind on it. You've basically described me, you've described the music that I've just played, the music that I like. And yeah, I am from time to time, a little bit twee, a little bit dissonant, but you know, I try to tread the sort of path somewhere through the middle. And that's what I've been trying to get at, actually in this, and every time I try to do so, all I realized was that I was actually just trying to describe me and what I like. I like that chord and it turns out I first heard it, or I first played it when I was 14. Oh there's the reminiscence bump again. So I don't think there, I mean, I think there are things that certain of us, that sort of maybe have the same cultural heritage, can agree on. But a lot of us absolutely can't, I couldn't get to the bottom of that. And I suspect what that means is, maybe humans are more diverse in their emotions than for instance, a bird. I mean, I think that's probably reasonable to say. So bird song is remarkably, isn't it, remarkably simpler. You know, all these birds of a particular species, they do the same thing. And we do a kind of same thing, maybe physically more than musically, but no, I don't think there is. So what I found was that actually all the things that I like a kind of various manifestations, in its very messed up way of my character. In the same way, I think it's found that if you ask for instance, a priest, a Christian priest, to describe Jesus, they describe themselves.(audience laughs) And when I talk about, you know, music that I love, I'm talking about the bits of myself I'm prepared to share with you. Those are the bits that I love,'cause they're manifestations of my character. Yes, and doubtless, some of the pieces that I've chosen there, you would absolutely not relate to in any way, particularly you obviously seem to be leaned towards a love ballad being gently consonant and that kind of thing. I don't know. I just, I like mixing it up a bit. Gosh. Should we move on?(all laughing)- [Host] And then the final question is the gentleman.- All sorts of stuff will come out.(all laughing)- [Host] At the back there.- [Student] Yeah, I apologize that this is like an unknowable thing, but do you know, or has there been any research or even do you think that the music that is listened to by, by girls at 13 or boys at 14, the nature of the relationships? Like the technicalities of the relationships in the songs will influence nature of their future relationships, when they're, you know, in their 20s or 30s?- I haven't been aware of any particular research leading towards that, but I don't need to think about it very much to say yes, absolutely and completely. But then again, I fundamentally believe that music has all sorts of power that exerts upon our sort of mental, physical wellbeing. But also you can use music for all sorts of ways. You can use it to sort of, you know, take yourself up, take yourself down. And yeah, I mean, teenagers are very good at that, aren't they, in particular? Teenagers are very good about, you know, deciding if it's going to be an up day or a down day or it's, "I'm going to do that." And it can't, it can't help. I mean, I think actually teenagers know, in many ways, I think they know exactly what they're doing and they will probably choose their own path through it. But yeah, I have absolutely no doubt that music is a genuine fundamental thing. Some people are more drawn to it than others. I live my life absolutely for it and because of it. Other people not so much. But yeah, I do think, I mean, when I look at it now, my response to music as an early teenager was delirious. I mean, nothing short of delirious. I couldn't get enough of it, of all different types. And yes, of course that, I mean, that's maybe the kind of slightly hyper, manic person that I am, I think, because I've responded to all those different things that went into the melting pot. So yeah, I think it is important. But I mean, this subject is a relatively new one to me and I think in general. But it's so much more easy to research these things now because we have, for instance, access to things like the data from Spotify. So it's very easy to see what we all choose. That's where this material has come from. You know, stuff that would've taken, you know, years, decades, now, somebody sat in front of a computer, over a few hours, can assemble this data and go,"Oh hang on, that makes sense." So this is a relatively new subject, but I'm sure it's got legs, absolutely.- Professor Summerly, thank you very much for your lecture this evening. Just before we thank him.(host laughing) You mentioned your next lecture on, "Humor and Music."- It's going to be funny, it's going to be very funny.(host laughing)- That one, come and join us for a laugh

00 p.m. Thank you all for attending and let's thank Professor Summerly again.(audience applauds)- Thank you.(audience applauds)