A few years ago I became intrigued by the number of people coming up to me after concerts and telling me that listening to the music had helped them to feel better. Sometimes they were quite specific. They mentioned having felt unwell at work, feeling unsure if they ought to go to the concert or just go straight home instead and rest. They said that they took their seats in a pessimistic frame of mind, were drawn in by the music, caught up by the interaction between the musicians, somehow soothed by the effect of the music and gradually realised that the horrible headache had gone, the fatigue had lifted, that they were no longer feeling so down about whatever it was that had been on their minds.

I had often been aware of the power of music to ‘soothe a savage breast’, but it seemed that there was a crescendo of such remarks from members of the audience. It could have been that people had gradually come to trust me enough to share such thoughts with me. Yet by no means all of these remarks were made by people I knew; mostly they were made by strangers. Sometimes I received letters from people I didn't know, attesting to the power of music. I couldn't attribute the effect entirely to live music either, because sometimes they wrote about recordings.