music for labour

Despite the market in Mozart for Mothers-to-be and the like I’m not sure anyone has produced any discs for labour and birth (and if they had, I suspect my choice of music might be very different from their suggestions!). Actually I did listen to some Mozart – early symphonies – a few hours before Magnus was born. I hadn’t tried to select any music in advance, but after the Mozart I decided one of the Priory Records CDs of evening canticles was what I wanted to hear. My husband carefully selected one without too much music by Sumsion or other composers whom he knew I didn’t care for, so we listened to the one performed by Bristol Cathedral Choir. As a result there are several canticle settings which are never going to seem quite the same again: Noble in B minor, Jackson in G, Leighton Second Service and Howells in G (with the ‘Star Trek’ Gloria to the Magnificat). There was also a ‘local’ setting by Raymond Warren (whose daughter I used to know in my Cambridge days), one by Morley (the midwives’ favourite) and a plainchant one. While I’m not a great plainchant fan the last was what I most appreciated in the circumstances. We played the CD twice through (no time to choose a different one!) and Magnus was born about half an hour after it ended. ‘Still talking about music’ is one of the comments part way through the midwife’s notes.