Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.By now we\u2019re all familiar with the idea of music as therapy. For James Rhodes, however, music can be equivalent \u2014 at times even preferable \u2014 to medication in the management of mental health. \u201cObviously, I am in favour of medication\u00a0when it is necessary to save lives,\u201d says the 49-year-old British-Spanish classical pianist, when I meet him at Peregrine\u2019s, an upmarket piano shop in Clerkenwell, central London. \u201cI was on medication and it genuinely saved my life. What I\u2019m not in favour of is medication as a kind of easy option\u00a0instead of doing other things that will also have the same effect. And there\u2019s no question that music [can].\u201dMan\u00eda, Rhodes\u2019s new album, is driven by that philosophy. Traversing swaths of classical territory, from JS Bach to 20th-century Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, it is an attempt to profile the therapeutic properties of music from all angles. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved this idea of prescribing pieces,\u201d says Rhodes. As someone who has long struggled with his own mental health, he says he has selected works that \u201caccompany me and my insomnia, my anxiety, my desperation and my fears in the middle of the night\u201d.He draws my attention to the works\u2019 individually uplifting qualities: the exhilarating energy of Rachmaninov\u2019s Moment Musical No. 6 in C major, for example, or the calm contemplation of the same composer\u2019s \u00c9tude-Tableau, Op. 33 No. 3 in C minor, which Rhodes likens to \u201cthat super slow\u00a0kind of yoga where you hold every pose\u201d. But, he insists, there\u2019s more than this to their psychological impact. \u201cMusic is purity; it\u2019s just pure good; like children and puppies and that stage in life when everything is OK, before the world comes\u00a0and beats the shit out of you.\u201d Music is purity; it\u2019s just pure good; like children and puppies and that stage in life when everything is OK, before the world comes\u00a0and beats the shit out of youEver since Rhodes burst on to the musical scene about 16 years ago, he has consistently flouted convention. He frequently appears onstage in jeans and T-shirt, speaking directly to the audience and investing pillars of the classical repertoire with a sense of jeopardy. Offstage, he has been known to launch into expletive-peppered tirades.Yet the man with soft brown eyes sitting in front of me comes across as far more gentle and quietly reflective than I had anticipated. \u201cMy big fear,\u201d he tells me, \u201cis that I\u2019m broken at some level. It drives me absolutely up the wall\u00a0with frustration\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009that I\u2019m going to be 50 this year, and it is still there.\u201d He doesn\u2019t go into detail but I have read his harrowing 2015 memoir Instrumental and know what he is referring to: a legacy of trauma stemming from having been raped repeatedly, at the age of six, by a PE teacher at his North London prep school.In the book, Rhodes outlines the physical and psychological consequences of the ordeal: the serious spinal injury it left him with, requiring reparative surgery; as well as depression, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts and time in a psychiatric hospital. What emerges is a story of anger and turmoil, but also a celebration of Rhodes\u2019s musical passion and his determination, in spite of everything he went through, to turn that passion into a career.He was seven when he found a recording of Bach-Busoni\u2019s Chaccone on an old cassette tape and started teaching himself the piano. At 18 \u2014 only four years after starting formal piano lessons \u2014 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but he never accepted it. Instead, he took a decade-long break from the piano, before returning to it with a vengeance at the age of 28. \u201cI found a teacher in Italy. He was aggressive and violent, but a genius. He really got me into shape.\u201d Rhodes gave his first public recital at London\u2019s Steinway Hall in 2008, aged 33.Since then, he has used his profile to promote causes that matter most to him and is proud of having successfully pushed for a new law on child protection in Spain, where he has lived since 2017. But he still laments what he views as the current \u201cepidemic\u201d of poor mental health. \u201cI would not hesitate to say\u00a0that [our] mental health is worse [than in the past]\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I remember a time when, if you left the house in the morning on a weekend, you couldn\u2019t be contacted until you got back\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Nowadays, the world is operating at a pace and a rhythm that is just not sustainable.\u201dDoes he think the demands of a music career \u2014 the public scrutiny; the perfectionism \u2014 might intensify psychological struggles? The answer is a vehement \u201cno\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t like this weird\u00a0kind of Hollywood idea\u00a0of the tortured artist\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Show me one person [in any field] who doesn\u2019t have those struggles\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I had the same fear and stress\u00a0going to a shift at Burger King\u00a0when I was 19\u00a0as I had playing at the Liceu\u00a0in Barcelona.\u201dSuch statements appear to fly in the face of recent research into mental health and the music industry. One of the largest studies to date, commissioned by Help Musicians in 2016, found that musicians\u00a0may be up to three times more likely to experience depression than the general public, with more than seven out of 10 reporting that they had experienced anxiety and panic attacks. But when I mention this to Rhodes, his response is polite scepticism: \u201cI imagine artists may self-report more easily, and that could well skew any results\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I simply refuse to believe that musicians are more vulnerable to depression. It seems absurd to me and empirically dubious.\u201dIf anything, he says, going on stage nowadays gives him respite from psychological distress \u201cbecause I [get to] remove myself from the equation completely. All I\u2019m trying to do is say: \u2018Just listen to this piece.\u2019\u201d But is there a risk of overstating the healing properties of music? \u201cWhat music does is turn up the volume on your emotions \u2014 and that can be a difficult thing if you\u2019re in a dark place,\u201d he admits, before insisting that he is not advocating for the idea of music as a panacea. \u201cIf you\u2019re suffering from schizophrenia, for example, then listening to Bach is not going to [solve the problem].\u201dSo what exactly is he advocating for? \u201cMusic is one of the few ways of just disappearing in a healthy way from reality.\u00a0It\u2019s an escape\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and it bypasses everything; it goes underneath words straight to the emotions.\u201d He concludes: \u201cSo if we\u2019re talking about finding a small number of things that are greater than the sum of their parts, that add joy to your life, then music is absolutely one of them.\u201d\u2018Man\u00eda\u2019 is released on March 14Find out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.By now we\u2019re all familiar with the idea of music as therapy. For James Rhodes, however, music can be equivalent \u2014 at times even preferable \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-232280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232282,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232280\/revisions\/232282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}