Bit of a disclaimer – I’m not a music critic by trade. But I am someone who survived a heart attack. So I have some skin in this game. I also didn’t go expecting to be writing a review, but as it seems nobody else has done one I couldn’t let this go.
Yesterday I was lucky enough to be at the premiere of Nitin Sawhney’s Heart Suite which, in music, tells the tale of Nitin’s experience with a heart attack. His heart attack experience was more severe than mine – he passed out at one point, falling and cutting his face up, then waking up with paramedics urgently helping him out and rushing him to St George’s hospital in London. It meant he’d postponed a performance with the Hallé orchestra planned for May. I believe this was the show.
In his own words, his heart attack was a big one:
It’s a terrifying feeling. Your chest feels like someone is sitting on your chest holding a 200kg weight and your head feels like it’s spinning out of control as you struggle to remain conscious. In my case, I completely blacked out, falling onto a glass ornament from a standing position, smashing the coffee table with my face as I collapsed into a pool of blood and broken shards, penetrating both cheeks, my nose and the area just beneath my eyes. Later a plastic surgeon had to carefully remove pieces of glass from my face with tweezers after 4 injections to my face. Nitin Sawhney on Twitter
I didn’t realise we were attending a premiere when I booked the show. My wife is a huge fan of Nitin’s and it was a birthday present for her. The tickets were priced at a superbly reasonable £20 so I was expecting a small room event because I hadn’t paid any real attention to where it was taking place – it just happened to be nearby in Manchester. £20 tickets to shows are usually for quite small and intimate events.
And what a venue the Bridgewater Hall is! It’s stunning. Architecturally modern, acoustically wonderful. It’s an incredible venue and if you ever have a chance to experience a concert here I’d highly recommend it.
With its pipe organ looming large over a full orchestra, we were treated to a concert of many wonderful pieces. It was exactly what I’d expected. I truly enjoyed the show, a joyous event where all the performers were clearly enjoying themselves. I won’t write too much of that, other than to say I was charmed. Remember – until last night I wasn’t the household fan. I knew of Nitin Sawhney and his work, but hadn’t done any deep listens.
Well I guess I’m a fan now.
The show played various great tunes, from Definition of Happy to the music from the important album Immigrant, and the interaction between Nitin and his band was always a joy. A short call and response section with his percussionist Aref Durvash on tabla was warm and fun. And I love it when musicians are having genuinely good times with each other.
The show was seemingly drawing to a close, and then… an announcement. We were to experience the premier of Heart Suite. Nitin was interviewed and talked of his experience and the wonderful work of surgeons and the British Heart Foundation. Of course, had I paid more attention when I bought the tickets I’d have known about this. Instead I was suddenly thrown starkly into the moment because I too was a surprised recipient of a heart attack.
The first movement opens quietly. A gentle discordant piece that starts with a feeling of mild unease. A heart attack is like this. You feel not right. You look for quick solutions to that discomfort, but it builds and builds until you know that something is very seriously wrong. The music reflected this beautifully and then… STOP. We’re lucky that the stop wasn’t a death. Instead he was rushed to hospital.
I cried. My heart attack was in 2019, and the soundscape took me back to the anxiety and pain just perfectly – but with cathartic also. It felt like the moment was explained to the people around me – a tool, almost, to express the confusion and fear. I found myself transported back in time, to that moment in the car, and the decision to drive to a walk-in certain. Probably one of my better life decisions. An ambulance came for me as it did for Sawhney.
And that moves us to the second movement that opens with a reproduction of the ambulance siren sounds – something I don’t think I’ve ever heard in classical music before. At this point, Sawhney and I had a different experience. He came to, was dealt with, and pumped full of morphine – he was also in a more immediate medical emergency. So the music at the stage becomes europhic. Morphine, I say, feels like a warm hug. I don’t think it takes pain away – you just don’t care any more!
My own heart attack subsided and two hours later the doctors weren’t even sure I’d had one. Everything looked normal again. But they decided to do an angiogram to check. I was in a bad way, in fact, and in danger of another heart attack and would need open heart surgery.
Nitin, instead, had an emergency angiogram. An angiogram is one of the most fascinating pieces of modern surgery. It’s incredible. And if you have one of these surgeries and have a stent placed you can go from feeling this pressure as your heart doesn’t pump well to a sense of relief literally from the moment the stent goes in and widens the blood vessel. This movement expressed that feeling.
My own story still echoed this, even if I wasn’t lucky enough to be stented. My heart surgery didn’t immediately make me feel better, of course. Nobody feels good after having their thorax ripped open. However, over the course of a couple of months you also feel this incredible improvement in your condition. By the end of the piece this sense of freedom, that life was beautiful again, rang around the hall.
It was one of the most emotional pieces of classical music I’ve ever experienced. Nitin, I’m now a huge fan too. Thank you. I wish you all the very best in your recovery and ongoing treatment to keep heart healthy. And maybe we’ll find you on the Cardiac Athletes Facebook group that was hugely helpful to me.
I can only finish by saying that I am really looking forward to the general release of this music, so that I can listen again. And I’ll take notes.
Thank you for this great review. I was at the concert too, and also suffered a sudden heart attack in August this year. It was very moving to hear the experience expressed in this fabulous way. It made me feel less alone and more understood somehow!