Music is louder than oblivion. This is the message that Paul Harvey, an 81-year-old Briton living with dementia, wants to convey. He has been away from home for five years now. The disease has eaten away at his memory so much that his three sons decided to place him in a specialized institute. And for good reason, on a daily basis, he struggles to remember what he did in the quarter of an hour and all his memories are erased, gradually, inevitably.
All except the music. Because before his life escaped him, Paul Harvey was a composer and then piano teacher at a conservatory in South London. One Sunday, one of his sons, Nick, to test his father a bit, sat him down in front of a keyboard and asked him to improvise, around four notes.
Dad’s ability to improvise and compose beautiful melodies on the fly has always amazed me.
Tonight, I gave him four random notes as a starting point.
Although his dementia is getting worse, moments like this bring him back to me. pic.twitter.com/dBInVCTmfF
– Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) September 17, 2020
After a little hesitation, his hands began to play. Nick filmed the whole scene and, blown away by the spontaneity of the improvisation, decided to post it on Twitter. “Although my father’s memory loss gets worse by the day, times like this bring him back to me a bit.“Result: more than two million views, and tens of thousands of” likes. “His former piano students showed up, donations for Alzheimer’s research poured in and articles began to flourish throughout the press British, elevating Paul Harvey to the rank of icon, the embodiment of hope.
It was a year ago, and a few days ago, to mark the anniversary of this video, the BBC offered him a new exercise: take the head of the radio philharmonic orchestra and lead the musicians on its own composition. What Paul Harvey accepted. Not without stress, but still.
‘Music’s a wonderful thing, it brings memories alive.’
A year ago, pianist Paul Harvey – who is living with dementia – and his son @mrnickharvey went viral after improvising a song from just four notes. Now, Paul’s conducting @BBCPhilharmonic!
Video: @BBCBreakfast pic.twitter.com/pLZO7UugLm
– Alzheimer’s Society (@alzheimerssoc) October 9, 2021
He therefore put on his best costume and found himself in the studio, in front of the desk to hold the baton, then at the piano, for two recordings broadcast on the public channel. “It was a magical moment, he confided leaving the platform, I hadn’t conducted an orchestra for a very long time and hearing these musicians playing my music was totally amazing. And I felt alive. “Word of a man who knows that things escape him but that there is also music, piano, notes, an unbreakable thread of knowledge, of memories, the test of time.