Rays of light

Multiple studies show that music can do wonders for our mental health. So which pieces do we turn to when times are tough?

- Jeremy Pound

Music cannot work a magic spell. It can, however, do wonderful things. In recent issues of BBC Music Magazine, we have explored the benefits to mental health of listening and playing music, not least when it comes to alleviating depression, though in fact this is a subject that has been addressed literally centuries ago – Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle both discuss it, and the Old Testament (1 Samuel 16: 14-23) tells of how David's skills on the lyre would ease King Saul's troubled mind. So, taking the science and anecdotal evidence as read, let's turn to the here and now. What pieces do people turn to when times are tough and spirits are low? For some, the way out of the abyss may lie in something light and upbeat, for some it might be something soothingly placid, while others turn to something empathetically sorrowful. Here, four BBC Music writers, plus the magazine's own editorial staff, share their choices of works to alleviate the gloomiest of times.

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 – Romanza

It may sound counterintuitive, but when going through difficult times I have always found that listening to slow, meditative, even melancholy music helps me to work through that negative emotion rather than attempting to mask it with lighter, brighter fare. If ever I'm in need of a good, cleansing cry, listening to John Williams's score for ET will absolutely do the trick – just a few bars are enough to bring tears to my eyes.

But for something deeper - even spiritual - I turn to Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony and the third movement Romanza, which not only conveys a poignant feeling of nostalgia, but an uplifting sense of beauty. It's that modal tension between major and minor - or, in other words, between sadness and joy - that allows me to experience unhappiness and loss, couched in an elegant structure. The essence of catharsis.