Arts: Contribution to Education, Health and Emotional Well-being

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, by 1944 some 6 million people had died in Auschwitz in appalling conditions. Sometimes the question is asked—it might have been asked earlier this afternoon in another debate—“Where was God in Auschwitz?”. Perhaps the answer might be, “Where was man?”. However, there could be another answer. Perhaps it came from a place that fed Auschwitz: Theresienstadt.

During its life, Theresienstadt housed between 120,000 and 150,000 individuals, all but about 22,000 of whom died in Auschwitz. For them, God was in their music. In that remarkable place, people were starving. They had no proper water supply and sanitation. They lacked almost every accompaniment of humanity, but they celebrated their humanity by singing Verdi’s “Requiem”. It was conducted by Rafael Schächter, one of the Jewish composers in Theresienstadt. Towards the end of the life of the camp, the composer Viktor Ullmann composed an opera called “Der Kaiser von Atlantis”, a satire on Hitler. It is a short opera that lasts for less than an hour. In it, pretty well every human emotion is described, including love, hope, longing and sadness. Interestingly, the one thing that is missing is anger, even though the chief singer is der Kaiser: Hitler. What we cannot forget is that Ullmann never saw the production, because when the Nazis saw it in rehearsal, they banned it, and of course Ullmann and his librettist ended up in Auschwitz, where they perished.

I shall talk about music only and declare an interest as chairman of the council of the Royal College of Music. I suggest that music is central to this debate. In some respects it is one of the most basic of the arts, because it is the closest to being unrepresentational in a way. One of the great things about music is that it expresses all humanity. It expresses longing, sadness, anger and humour, it looks at joy, as my noble friend has already mentioned, it looks at sadness and at love and, in the case of Theresienstadt, it looked at hope as well. It is a basic civilising influence on our population.

When you look at music in scientific terms, you see that it affects different parts of the brain. For example, memory is enhanced by listening to music. Recent studies using magnetic resonance imaging scanning show that different parts of the brain, including the hippocampus, expand when we listen to or play music, whether we are musicians or non-musicians. When it comes to dexterity, the motor cortex at the top of the brain is also enhanced. The auditory cortex is enhanced as well; most importantly, Broca’s area, which is on the left side for a right-handed person and central to language, is also very closely linked to music. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why so many musicians have been amazing linguists.

These things are developed by people who use and play music, particularly schoolchildren. I want to speak mostly of schoolchildren in this instance. Although we think that musicians are born and not made, it turns out that this is not the case. Recent evidence in a beautiful German study clearly shows that pretty well anybody who is given enough time and practice can compete with the best opera singers, and that their brain can expand in the areas that are needed. That has been demonstrated in scanning.

On a lighter note, a pop video made by One Direction was launched on the web this week. On the first day of launch, it received 14 million hits, which was extraordinary. One Direction are delightful young men. They are responsible. I think that they are altruistic, although I do not know that for certain, my impression is that they are. At many levels, they are an interesting role model for young people and you can see that they are massively followed by them. It is a pity that we do not have that same following for classical and other music which have so much depth in terms of our learning experience and give us wealth, not financial wealth, of course, but wealth in how we perceive the world and react to it and the wealth that is in our humanity and relationships.

For schoolchildren, music and learning music do not foster just memory and probably better intellectual capacity, although, in spite of the rumours, not intelligence, but they certainly foster collaboration and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has said, empathy, which is obviously important. These things are really important to children, and the lack of musical education in schools is great concern in our society at the moment.

The Minister may not have figures to hand at the moment, but perhaps they can be dug out. Under the previous Government there was the singing initiative, which I not think is anything like adequate enough. In music, it would be better if far more schoolchildren had access to instruments because that increases that collaboration in a new way. They help understanding of the structure of music and increase dexterity. It would be of interest to know what the Government are doing about the number of schools, particularly primary schools, which have access to musical instruments.

Finally, as someone who supports the Royal College of Music and other areas in musical education, will the Minister tell us how the Government view the outreach programmes that conservatoires are doing to spread music among young people? The Sparks programme run by the Royal College of Music takes primary school children, and there is no question that children who come from very different backgrounds achieve amazing success. They collaborate and play music so well that it is difficult to believe they have not been learning music for a great deal longer than they have. Many conservatoires have a junior department which is closer to more, if you like, adult children. It would be helpful if the Minister in her summing up could affirm support for those sorts of activities, which I believe are really important to the health of the nation.