Classical music to lift the spirits

“Today's mixtape in our positive mental health week is about that fundamental human journey we all take at various times in our lives: discovery. Poulenc's jolly, mythical Embarkment for Cythera kick-starts our half hour, morphing into music by the Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, beautifully updated and reaching back and forth between the millenia: music that has inspired explorers of new age ideas as well as the feminist movement. John Cage's In a Landscape next: the American composer's piano essay meanders in a still wilderness of searching beauty. Borodin next and then Mozart, a composer who retained his childish fascination for discovery. Then comes Berlioz's Harold in Italy, the viola doubling as Harold, our hero wandering in the Abruzzi pennines; the healing power of nature is writ large in this piece. Staying in a world of enchantment, our 'discovery' journey ends with Ravel's masterpiece Fairy Garden, ending on a note of incomparable beauty and love.”