The Psychiatrist at the Keyboard (R): Boxing Day 1.00pm

[doversoul1]

Live from Wellcome Collection's Henry Wellcome Auditorium, psychiatrist and concert pianist Dr Richard Kogan demonstrates how some composers? mental illness influenced and shaped their music. In his first public appearance in the UK, Kogan's main clients on the couch are Robert Schumann - perhaps the most troubled of all - and Sergey Rachmaninov, whose composing career was saved by medical intervention.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06dd1wq

Out of not as exciting as I had expected Why Music series, this was very good to listened to, if anyone missed it.

[Nick Armstrong]

This remarkable programme is on now.

(I've corrected the time in the original post heading - it in fact started at 1.00pm, and is 2 hours long)

Live from Wellcome Collection's Henry Wellcome Auditorium, psychiatrist and concert pianist Dr Richard Kogan demonstrates how some composers? mental illness influenced and shaped their music. In his first public appearance in the UK, Kogan's main clients on the couch are Robert Schumann - perhaps the most troubled of all - and Sergey Rachmaninov, whose composing career was saved by medical intervention.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06dd1wq

Out of not as exciting as I had expected Why Music series, this was very good to listened to, if anyone missed it.

[Rex Bartlett]

Yes, listening to it again. It takes me back to Antony Hopkins, Talking About Music from when I was a slip of a lad.

But I'm replying because of your mention of the Why Music series back in September.

In one of the discussions back then they played a part of Mahler 10 which fair took my breath away. The phrasing was sublime. I'd love to find out where the excerpt was from. Does anyone know if this would be possible?

[gradus]

For any Schumannophile an engrossing programme - I have yet to hear the second part on Rachmaninov. The lecturer is a very fine pianist able to illustrate his psychiatric observations with excerpts from the music itself to great effect, in particular the musical fragment that is Schumann's final musical utterance was deeply moving.

[Once Was 4]

For any Schumannophile an engrossing programme - I have yet to hear the second part on Rachmaninov. The lecturer is a very fine pianist able to illustrate his psychiatric observations with excerpts from the music itself to great effect, in particular the musical fragment that is Schumann's final musical utterance was deeply moving.

Excuse me if I have got this wrong but was the 'live' performance of the 1st mvt actually a live pianist playing to a recording of the orchestral part by reasonably good German provincial orchestra? Not sure how they got round the MU over that. I loved the 1st horn though with such an expressive vibrato - it reminded me of a recording by a Polish orchestra whose 1st horn, Joseph Gmulka, was noted for sound.

Mind you, we once had several recordings by the Omsk-Tomsk Philharmonic, under that great conductor Ivan The Terrible, playing music that they had so much in their blood - Percy Grainger etc. These were made because Eastern European orchestras would record for an extra cup of coffee and all the grass they could eat. A conductor once told me that this cost more in the end because a British professional regional orchestra could do the work on a few 'rehearse/record' sessions whereas their Eastern colleagues needed umpteen rehearsals before they went into the studio - good though they were.

If I have got this wrong I will take my punishment!

[gradus]

I left the programme at the Schumann Fantasy and assumed that it was Rachmaninov thereafter perhaps wrongly?

[Rex Bartlett]

Excuse me if I have got this wrong but was the 'live' performance of the 1st mvt actually a live pianist playing to a recording of the orchestral part by reasonably good German provincial orchestra? Not sure how they got round the MU over that

I think he probably used this Music Minus One CD: http://musicminusone.com/piano/mmo-p...mmocd3007.html

I still have the old vinyl MMO's of this and the Tchaikovsky 1 and Greig I bought from Harrods about 50 years ago. They needed a turntable with speed adjustment to match with my out-of-tune piano.

The Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra can, I suppose, be described as a reasonably good German provincial orchestra. Maybe I should have said could, seeing as the conductor here died 30 years ago aged 88, so goodness knows how old the original recording is.