More on Musical Chills

Late the other night, when I couldn't sleep, I began to think more about the phenomenon "musical chill". In an earlier post I commented on this noting that Alex Ross wrote about this effect in the New Yorker article on Mahler. Apparently this was initially described by a neuroscience investigator, Jaak Panskepp, who has describe the physical reactions ”in which listeners are suddenly overcome by a physical tremor that runs down the body and raises the hairs on the skin." Mine were more like an internal, deep in the chest slowing, where my body seems to flush and my breath stops briefly. Since sleep wasn't coming, I tried to remember other times when I experienced this "musical chill" since that first one in college many years ago. Here are a few:

During a performance of "Rigoletto" in the city auditorium in Boeblingen Germany, I watch an amazing Gilda. I don't know her name. She was with a traveling troupe from Poland in West Germany, before the wall came down. This was in 1984 and she took my breath away and gave me the "chill". I remember thinking that it was too bad she would probably never be heard in the US since travel for the poles was so limited in those days. I wonder what happened to her.

In the late 80's I heard Kurt Moll sing Osmin's aria from "The Abduction from the Seraglio" at the Met. He took all the low notes and even though I was sitting high in the balcony, I could hear every one. It was an electric "chill", followed by another one as audience sprang up cheering.

Since I'm a fan of the low notes, I also recall a similar reaction in the early 90's when a Swedish(?) Baron Ochs (can't remember his name) went beautifully very, very deep at the end of the second act of Der Rosenkavelier at the Santa Fe Opera. I actually heard him sing Ochs twice within a week, but only the first one had the effect.

"Chills" haven't been frequent here in Boulder, but I do remember two:

During Giora Bernstein's tenure as the conductor of the Colorado Music Festival he once conducted Bruckner's 8th symphony. Giora founded and led CMF for some 20 years then moved on. I knew Giora a little and had talked to him about the Bruckner. He pointed me to a recording conducted by Gunter Wand which I used to "rehearse listening". I distinctly remember two "chills": once at the end of the second movement and at the end of the finale. Unfortunately, the CMF web site apparently doesn't have anything anymore about Giora -- not a nice way to treat the founder.

Two years ago the current CMF conductor, Michael Christie, choose to do a stage performance of Osvaldo Golijov's "Ainadamar". As I often do for an unknown piece, I bought a copy of the CD and listened to it many times. Sung in Spanish, the opera is about Lorca and his execution at the 'Fountain of Tears'. Being lazy I never bothered to read the libretto's translation and as a result never got a good feel for the work. Only the beginning and end of "Ainadamar" appealed to me musically, based on the CD. I went to at least one of the rehearsals and still felt the same way. At the CMF performance, however, there were super titles available and, of course, it was played straight through. The role of Lorca is a "trouser role" and was sung by mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor. The "chill" occurred when she softly began singing the "confession" prior to the execution. I'm listening to it now and still remember the overall wonderful effect.

Most "chills" happen at live performances, but once, and only once, was I hit by a recording. It wasn't the first time I'd heard the end of the third act of Die Walküre. James Morris was Wotan and sang "Leb wohl". Maybe I was drifting off to sleep at that point, but his singing suddenly jolted me with this rare "musical chill".

So I've come up with a total of seven so far --- hopefully, I'll get another one someday.