The power of music is just awesome! Trumpets shattered the walls of Jericho, and when Orpheus tenderly tickled his lute, his dead wife Euridice returned to life. Given such enormous powers, you better be careful because listening to music can turn you into a homicidal maniac. And I am not talking about listening to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Mason or Gangsta Rap!
According to a case in the Hong Kong Courts, repeatedly listening to Alexander Scriabin’s Vers la Flamme (Toward the Flame) led a Hong Kong man to kill and butcher his parents. The defending psychiatrist claimed that his client listened to the piece every night for a whole month. “The music intensified the images of fire and flame in his mind. He believed the world was going to end and he could not get away from it. The music was like repeating the words to him every day.” It seems that listening to Scriabin simultaneously induced thoughts of suicide and killing, as well as elevating him to God-like status. The defendant reports, “feeling brave enough to touch the tights of a woman he did not know on a bus.”
While the emotional power of classical music should never be underestimated, listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations will generally not make you hungry for human intestines. And listening to Vers la Flamme will not trigger murdering rampages. The underlying psychological disorders are the fundamental issues, and should have been picked up much earlier. According to the psychiatrist, his client “expected to kill somebody before he turned 30,” and the fact that he actually did has little to do with Scriabin. However, just in case I am wrong, you better listen to a bit of Mozart while reading this article!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 17, K. 458
Related Posts
-
Writing Music in Light The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was very interested in relating color and sound.
-
Opposites Attract: Well, what then?
Alexander Scriabin and Vera Ivanovna Isakovich Natalya Sekerina emphatically rejected Alexander Scriabin’s proposal of marriage, and the composer was devastated. -
Alexander Scriabin What happens when new neural connections within your brain break down the boundaries that normally exist between the senses?
-
The Taste and Color of Music
Alexander Scriabin There is a fine line between genius and madness. Given the current zeal for psychoanalyzing dead composers, Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) would seem to be a perfect subject.
More Society
-
Truck Concerts, Drive-in Concerts: Creativity and Innovation in the Time of Covid Look at how artists are redefining the concert experience!
-
Max Frisch and Einar Englund: The Great Wall of China Theatrical play and incidental music composed in the year 1949
-
Outspoken Performances III: Political Voices of Opera Singers Anna Netrebko, Yusif Eyvazov, Giorgi Todua and Joyce DiDonato
-
Outspoken Performances II: Conductor’s Podium as a Political Platform Politics on and off the Podium