Last year internationally acclaimed pianist Yuja Wang performed a bold marathon concert at Carnegie Hall wearing a device to track her heart rate.
The concert in January 2023 celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninov.
Spanning 2.5 hours of physically and emotionally demanding music, and featuring more than 97,000 notes on the piano, the concert included all four of Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos, as well as his Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.
Wang has performed each of these works dozens of times, but she suggested it's the first time these works have been performed all at once "in the history of piano".
"Tackling all of these works in a single concert is an absolutely incredible feat," said Australian concert pianist Andrea Lam.
Lam explained the preparation to play these five concertos would be very involved.
"To have the stamina, focus, imagination, skill, expression, intensity and concentration to do that marathon at a level where each concerto is not compromised at all is phenomenal," Lam said.
Members of the orchestra, conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and some audience members agreed to have their heart rates tracked through wearable devices alongside Wang.
In a video by Carnegie Hall which analyses the data, the famous venue stated "a once in a lifetime experience calls for a once in a lifetime experiment".
The team wanted to investigate what happens when Rachmaninov's music touches people's hearts, literally.
The results, analysed by data specialists, were shared with Wang and Nézet-Séguin.
When Wang saw the chart representing her heart rate, she was able to identify highs and lows with corresponding moments in the performance.
Many concertos, including Rachmaninov's consist of three movements, starting with a fast movement and shifting to a slower middle movement which then builds to an intense finale.
Wang's heart rate reached the highest peaks during the finales, which also featured the orchestra playing very loudly.
Initially, Wang thought playing more notes was what made her heart race. But peaks in the heart rate data instead more closely correlated with Wang's level of familiarity with the music. Tempo and dynamic also affected her heartbeat more so than the number of notes.
Interestingly, Wang's heart rate chart was mirrored by Nézet-Séguin's.
According to Australian conductor Benjamin Northey, the mental challenge required to conduct the orchestra during this performance would be considerable.
"Just maintaining concentration for such long periods of time even with familiar repertoire can be a challenge," Northey said.
Although the charts showed where Wang and Nézet-Séguin diverged to face individual performance challenges, Wang remarked they were mostly "thinking [the] same thoughts about the music".
Nézet-Séguin, who trained actor Bradley Cooper for the recent Leonard Bernstein biopic, Maestro, said of the process: "My entire life as a conductor is to bring people in sync."
But he wasn't expecting the synchronicity to be reflected in data, or that Wang's emotional playing could affect his own and the audience's heart rates.
Although the investigation by Carnegie Hall is not a scientific study, Lam said that as a performer it was insightful to see the heart rates of the audience and musicians aligned during one of the most emotionally charged moment towards the end of the concert.
The results reflected findings in a recent study which found that live concerts could synchronise audiences' hearts.
Northey once wore a heart rate monitor while rehearsing. He compared conducting to doing "light aerobics" for many hours, citing the data showed that his heart rate spiked "when the music calls for more physically demonstrative gestures".
But Northey reckons the real winner was his blood pressure. "[Conducting] leads to heightened fitness," he said.
Lam said for her, one of the most magical things about live concerts is the sense that everyone in the room are immersed in the same stories and sound world.
"I have always wondered if I just imagined it, but now there is data to back that up as a real phenomenon." Lam said.
