Economics Business Music Politics Altruism : July 2009

Schumann music has not figured very much on my radar for unknown reasons but one day while at a music store, I was introduced to his symphonic works and I decided to give it a try. It was interpreted by Eliahu Inbal and was like love at first sound. I could not figure out why but I recently learned that we might be hard wired to some musical forms unconsciously. In that experiment, they got a volunteer who loves Bach music. Played some obscure pieces from both Bach and Beethoven and ask the person to choose which composer each piece belongs to. It came as no surprise that the participants were able to get the correct composer most of the time as the two composers belongs to different eras with markedly different styles. However, there were some wrong answers also.

In a second series of tests, they now put the participants insides a MRI machine and used special ear phones to play the music to the participants while taking an MRI of their brain. The ear phones had to be special as nothing metallic would survive an MRI machine. The participants were also equipped with an A/B switch to indicate whether the music was Bach to Beethoven. The percentage of right and wrong answers were about similar. Two notable observations were made during the experiment. Firstly, the MRI almost consistently showed two markedly different patterns according to the composer and very little differential between pieces by the same composer. Secondly, even when the participants gave the wrong answers, their brain seems to have gotten the correct answer according to the image on the MRI.

Would love to acknowledge the owner of the above experiment but I could not recall the names and my apologies. My point being that perhaps I am hardwired to like Schmann symphonies without knowing.

Getting back to music, the symphony no 4 has two versions ie the 1841 and heavily revised 1851 with the latter being the more commonly played and recorded version. My collection of this piece quickly grew from 1 to 6 of which only 1 is the 1841 version. It was also opinionated by some Schumann experts that symphony no 4 was actually a heavily revised version of his symphony no 3 but after much listening to both, I cannot hear the similarity personally.

I would start with the Eliahu Inbal version with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Schumann being a German and Inbal being Jewish and given the history of the two races, it is interesting that music can be a common denominator that glue things together. This version is more subdued interpretation right from the first note. Inbal most probably considered the circumstances surrounding the composer when the piece was written and the fact that his wife Clara Schumann is said to have a hand in the revision closer to his death after an attempted suicide. A widow under those circumstances is more likely to be more subdued mood wise as she internalize her husband death.

The version by Riccardo Muti with the New Philharmonia Orchestra also mirrors that of Bernstein and this is perhaps because the recordings were done at about the same time.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt did a fairly recent recording with his Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and this is most probably what I would term as a catching the train interpretation tempo wise. Sonically, it has the advantage of better recording technology and also a markedly larger orchestra.

Thomas Dausgaard and Swedish Chamber Orchestra is next on my list. I have this on SACD and with a smaller orchestra, it actually sounded sweeter.

Although I have not heard the 1841 scoring, some might say that the scoring of the earlier 1841 version is like an uncut diamond and perhaps the beauty is most probably in rawness and capturing the initial intent of the composer.

The more authoritative version by Leonard Bernstein with Vienna Philharmonia is quite the opposite interpretation with gusto and much extremities of emotions throughout the piece. Perhaps Bernstein is registering the probable mood swings that Schumann was going through in his final hours of life. This is also a live recording and the audience sounds very disciplined or the sound engineers did a good job to mask it.

The last version is most probably one of its kind. I got this piece second hand off the internet and it happens to be a recording made at the bequest of the German Bank West LB when they sponsored the concert in Dusseldorf where the composer once lived. The conductor was Hans Vonk that has recorded this piece with Czech Orchestra before but this one was with a German Orchestra. The entire liner notes was in German and rightly so as it is supposedly given away as a memento to guest of West LB at the concert. I do not wish to trace its origin further but it is a good recording with enough energy to move my heart strings.

For my lawyer friends out there, Schumann actually wanted to be a lawyer but decided that he is more suited for a musical career. Perhaps one of the reason his symphonic pieces are not heard that often is because it was recorded that he was not a good conductor but I think one need not be a good conductor to write good symphonies.

Lastly, for my more religious friends, Schumann is a so called atheist it was documented that his life was the pursuit of wine women and song although his wife Clara continued to carry his torch even after his death.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

Sir Francis Galton who is a half cousin of the Charles Darwin and a person steep in aristocracy and the study of inheritance of intelligence during the early 1900s was surprised that the crowd at a county fair was able to guess the weight of an ox better than the estimates of the cattle experts at hand. Although no single guess of the crowd and cattle experts were correct, the mean of their collective guess of the crowd was more accurate than that of the cattle experts. For Francis Galton, this was not only a surprise but most probably represented an unlearning of his basic belief in the superior wisdom of the intelligentsia proxied by the aristocrats of his time relative to the wisdom of the crowd.

Many years ago, the elder statesman of Singapore; Lee Kuan Yew once made a comment that perhaps there should be a re-examination of the 1 man 1 vote system which is the cornerstone of democracy. Such a comment by a politician would have been equated to a politician committing career hara-kiri. However, in Singapore Lee Kuan Yew was commended for his candor in being willing to surface such a sensitive topic for the public to start pondering about. The topic did not take much root and died a natural death on the media and eventually in much of Singapore.

It was an old Washington Post editorial where Francis Galton experiment was mentioned that revived my memory of the comment made by Lee Kuan Yew. What unsettled me was that Lee Kuan Yew have a few parallel in terms of beliefs with Francis Galton with both of them being highly intelligent, influential members of society and thought leaders. In addition, the topic of inheritance of intelligence has also some parallel in the 'Graduate Mother Scheme' that has been abolished. This scheme provided off-springs of graduate mothers priority points in getting into choice schools. This scheme was relatively short-lived as it saw opposition not only from non-graduate mothers who were dis-advantaged by it but also by the graduate mothers themselves I believe on an altruistic heart chord of preserving the scared equal opportunity for all and sundry. At least it proves that political apathy has not gone as far into the woods as some might have thought. To be fair to Lee Kuan Yew, it was a Ministry of Education policy and not entirely his making.

Perhaps, we all should be mindful that though the 1 man 1 vote system is not perfect, it is most probably the best that we have. To me, this is so scared that most attempts to improve the system will more likely injure it than do any good to it and perhaps should be considered an out of bounds topic for a long time.

Economics Business Music Politics Altruism

Schumann Symphony No 4 in D minor Op 120

The Wisdom of Crowds-Singapore Election Perspectives