Sunday Feature: Hypnotising Rachmaninov

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Hypnotising Rachmaninov

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Hypnotising Rachmaninov

Georgia Mann delves into the world of hypnosis and how it helped cure Rachmaninov.

Georgia Mann delves into the world of hypnosis. How did Rachmaninov use it to write a masterpiece? What in fact happens in a session? And why do we think it's for Disney villains?

“No sooner had the last chords died away than I fled, horrified, into the street… All my hopes, all my belief in myself, had been destroyed.”
Sergei Rachmaninov described the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony which plunged him into a three-year creative crisis, unable to compose.

And yet three years later the piece that finally emerged was his masterpiece - his Second Piano Concerto - one of the best loved pieces of music ever written, immortalised in the public consciousness by Eric Carmen. Brief Encounter and any number of romantic music playlists.

Rachmaninov dedicated it to a Dr Nikolai Dahl - and Dahl practised hypnosis. Rachmaninov put his revival down to a series of hypnosis sessions with Dahl who repeated the same hypnotic formula day after day, “You WILL write a Concerto…It WILL be excellent….”  

Now Georgia Mann has heard this story before and even told it on the radio, but has always been a bit sceptical. Can hypnosis really cure an artist to such a degree that they can go from despair to writing a masterpiece? Isn't it just for stage magicians and Disney villains?

The roots of modern hypnosis are often thought to lie with the Viennese Doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer in the 18th century, so Georgia visits Vienna and eminent hypnotherapist Dr Stella Nkenke to learn about mesmerism, what exactly happens when we're under hypnosis, and how it can be used to help musicians today. She talks to guitarist Craig Ogden about how he, like Rachmaninov, turned to the therapy to help cure a musical problem. And Georgia's scepticism is put to the test with a session in the hypnotic chair...

She enlists broadcaster Matthew Sweet to help understand how film and literature have shaped our understanding of hypnotism today, and she sits down with pianists Nikolai Lugansky and Katya Apekisheva and musicologist Marina Frolova-Walker to understand more about Rachmaninov's story via his glorious piano music. Can we learn anything of his struggles and personality in the heart-wrenching melodies of the Second Piano Concerto?

Producer - Hannah Thorne

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