2008 AACC Award Recipients

Our Editor recently suggested that I prepare a commentary on musical forensics, and I was reminded of the immense power of music to inspire, relax, motivate, or simply provide enjoyment. The associations between music and human health are too numerous to chronicle. Music is often considered an antidote to stress, possibly because it provides a predictable atmosphere, thus bringing order to potentially chaotic situations; the dentist’s chair and elevators stand out as commercial applications. Music has even been suspected to enhance intellect; a prominent example is the so-called Mozart Effect (1). Such marketing ploys aside, the processes of playing and even just listening to music have been shown to involve many cognitive functions and thus affect reasoning, thinking, brain plasticity, and emotions. A broad, immense body of literature addresses the association of music and physiology and disease. A case in point is the recent best-selling book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by neurologist Oliver Sacks (2). Sacks (allegedly a clumsy laboratorian whose clinical career was kick-started when he was advised to get out of the laboratory and work with patients) presents case histories, each involving music as a common theme. A number of cases involve synesthesia, a neurological cross-wiring phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense results in an association or experience with another sensory path, for example seeing colors when hearing certain sounds or tones. The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, arguably the most famous synesthete, associated colors with specific tones and invented a “color organ” (clavier à lumières) that anticipated the 1960s by half a century; its use resulted in orchestral performances with light shows. Scriabin’s unfinished magnum opus Mysterium was composed for large orchestra and color organ. In addition to visual colors, Scriabin intended the performance of this piece to exploit the senses of smell (provided by various incenses) and touch (I’m not certain that I want to go there), as well as to feature ballet accompaniment. That the work was never completed is probably a good thing, because after the first performance Scriabin intended the world to end—I guess that would halt squabbles regarding royalties for subsequent performances or video rights. I personally know individuals who claim to associate colors with musical tones, but Sacks presents an unusual case of synesthesia in which the individual associated various tastes with tones, including a minor second as “sour,” a major second as “bitter,” and a major sixth as “low-fat cream. ” One wonders whether this unusual person, originally described by researchers at the University of Zürich (3), got very hungry at concerts. Certainly this case gives new meaning to Shakespeare’s line in Richard II, “How sour sweet music is. ” An interesting subset of the substantial body of literature on music and disease addresses the association of musicians and diseases. Recently the Baltimore Symphony and their exciting new music director Marin Alsop assembled experts from Johns Hopkins and other Baltimore area institutions to examine the latest forensic data from analyses performed on Beethoven’s hair and skull fragments. The result was a highly marketable initiative, CSI: Beethoven. “For me, the main motivation is to get beyond the image of Beethoven as this disembodied bust, to give people insight into this man who lives upstairs or next door, who writes this incredible music, but is such a tortured soul,” said Alsop. Charles Limb, assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins University, is quoted in the Baltimore Sun: “Beethoven is probably the most famous deaf person the world has ever known. Beethoven’s hearing loss is the closest thing that classical music has to an urban legend” (4 ). Limb suggests that the master’s deafness may have been brought on by a case of typhus meningitis. On another note (no pun intended), what are we to think of all this very public discussion of diagnosis for a specific patient, particularly because it is taking place in the home city of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency charged with enforcing HIPAA privacy? CSI, evidence-based medicine, and all that aside, I much prefer the likely apocryphal account of Beethoven dying while shaking his fist at heaven with lightning bolts illuminating the sky, as reported by Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who was often unreliable but who was, after all, at Beethoven’s deathbed. Who should know better? On the topic of deafness and music, parting notice should be made that the Bavarian Radio Orchestra recently cancelled a performance of a work entitled Halat Hisar (State of Siege), by composer Dror Feiler, because of its “adverse health effects. ” The composition starts with machinegun fire, and “that’s the quietest part [of the 20© Reproduced with permission. Clinical Chemistry 54:7 1262–1263 (2008) Clinical Chemist