Professional classical musicians are a glamorous, vulnerable and largely voiceless population. They sweep on stage in black tie and gowns, then quietly go home; often, we know almost nothing about their lives outside their performance. But this week a lesser known aspect of those seemingly decorous lives has come to light, after a horn player for Simon Rattle's Berlin Philharmonic admitted to drinking before performances to calm his nerves. "You go for tranquilisers or beer," Klaus Wallendorf told a documentary film-maker. "With me it was beer. Then you drink two beers and it goes smoothly so you think you should do it all the time." The revelation has prompted further admissions, and German tenor Roland Wagenführer expressed concerns about drug abuse in the opera world. So does classical music have a drink-and-drugs problem?
Let's start with full disclosure. I am a professional musician - an oboeist - and have performed with four major orchestras in the US, including the New York Philharmonic. Like many people my age (I'm 48), I've tried marijuana and Valium in the past. Today, I drink alcohol on a social basis, as well as beta blockers, which are prescribed by my doctor, and which I take for performance anxiety once or twice a year.
That's not so shocking, is it? Despite my musical accomplishments, I am a normal person who addresses various challenges like anyone else. Yet some would label me a troubled substance abuser, and say that classical musicians are trying to one-up Amy Winehouse.
First, let's dissect the effect of various drugs, and consider why classical musicians would want to take them. Alcohol, tranquilisers, marijuana, and beta blockers have dramatically different applications and effects, many of which are undesirable for musicians. Musicians are not exempt from alcoholism, and it affects performance in a negative way. Classical musicians rely on minute technique and quick response time; alcohol only dampens these skills, and although initially it might ameliorate stage fright, once on stage, drunkenness only amplifies terror. The violinist Nigel Kennedy may have a reputation as a hellraiser, but even he says he would only smoke or drink after a concert - never before. "Performing under the influence of alcohol or dope would be cheating the audience," he told Focus magazine in Germany last month. I have seen, on rare occasions, musicians drinking pre-concert, and it never works out well.
Cocaine is a drug only the most successful musicians use - because it's expensive. (Newsflash: working-class musicians don't earn big.) In small amounts, cocaine does seem to enhance confidence, which, depending on how much preparation you've put in, could be a good thing - or highly embarrassing when it comes to reading the reviews the next morning. I do know musicians who use it while performing, but they are a tiny minority.
Tranquilisers like Valium have similar consequences to alcohol: they compromise technique and response time. Still, some people are prescribed these drugs for medical reasons, so it's difficult to separate the "abusers" from the legitimate patients.
Few people use marijuana these days. In general, musicians want and need to be mentally acute. Pot doesn't fit the bill. Furthermore, one of the drug's main symptoms is paranoia, which doesn't go well with stage fright.
Finally we come to beta blockers, a class of heart medications that treat blood pressure, angina and migranes. Since a 1965 Lancet article explored their use for stage fright, they've also been widely prescribed for musicians, public speakers, and even surgeons who must steady their hands.
Beta blockers are not recreational drugs. They do not affect cognitive abilities, but instead block adrenaline-like chemicals in the human system. For a violinist, this means performance can feel like practice, with no bouncing bow or slippery fingers.
An article in the Times yesterday reported that there is a "black market" for beta blockers among classical musicians. But these are legal drugs - taken for medical reasons by as many as 10% of the world's (and therefore any orchestra's) population; they are routinely prescribed for stage fright.
As a teenager, I suffered debilitating stage fright. When I went to college, I asked the conducting staff to assign me to pit orchestras, instead of onstage groups. And so I asked my doctor for a prescription for beta blockers.
On the subway in New York in 1986, I took my first dose of Inderal, a beta blocker, some 45 minutes before an audition. It seemed miraculous. Although I still felt nervous, my hands didn't shake as usual, I wasn't gasping for air and my mind remained clear. I played exactly as I had meticulously prepared to do. I won the job, and went on to play a Carnegie Hall debut recital, record a Grammy-nominated CD, and hold a solo position with four major Broadway productions.
Beta blockers are not a class of drug that's subject to abuse. No one would want to overdose: I once took too much (which I later learned was only a quarter of my elderly mother's daily prescription) and the boring performance that ensued made me commit to smaller doses from then on.
It always seems surprising to audiences that classical musicians are like any other cross section of society - subject to the same joys, sorrows, and misbehaviour. Yes, some musicians are alcoholics. Some are stoners, who stumble through life on pot, middling about on the worst possible gigs, ones that barely support them. Some lose everything in the wake of cocaine and crack abuse.
I knew a beautiful blonde cellist in New York in the 1980s, who was married, owned a gorgeous apartment overlooking Central Park, and landed a chair in Phantom of the Opera, which is playing two decades later. Yet she surrendered to cocaine, and then crack. She died three years ago after battling Aids for a decade, leaving behind a young son. She was a stellar musician, but also an ordinary human being with demons like anyone else.
Three years ago, I published a book about drugs and classical music, Mozart in the Jungle. On my book tour, a journalist asked me to clarify why "musicians are more noble than other people". Where did he get such an idea? Although most of us don't end up in dire circumstances, we, like anyone else, are just people. We're tempted. We say yes or no to drugs. But, because of our discipline, we most often say no: drugs and impairment are not worth risking a lifetime of practice.
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