The Mozart Effect. Does listening to Mozart’s music make you smarter?

In 1991 the French researcher Alfred Tomatis published a strange book entitled: Why Mozart? (Pourquoi Mozart?).
There the mysterious term “Mozart Effect” was coined, a kind of aural grace state that occurs after listening to the extraordinary Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The “Mozart Effect” produces concrete impacts in the short term. The studies carried out indicate that listening to the music of Mozart induces a considerable improvement in intellectual performance, especially in spatio-temporal reasoning.

Studies published in Why Mozart? caused a strong impact. It was believed that, at least in part, listening to Mozart could make listeners smarter.
A prime example of the “Mozart Effect” fever broke out in 1998, when Zell Miller, Democratic Governor of Georgia, United States, announced that $ 105,000 from the state budget would be earmarked for each Georgia-born child to have their own Mozart CD.
But the “Mozart Effect” studied by Alfred Tomatis does not speak of an increase in the general intelligence of those who listen to Mozart’s music; but rather a short-term effect capable of stimulating intellectual performance.
Later research confirmed this hypothesis, and some of them concluded that listening to Mozart even serves as support for different treatments of psychiatric disorders.
That controversial governor of Georgia seems to have been at least partially correct about the influence of Mozart’s music on babies.
As commented by researcher John Campbell in his 1997 work: The Mozart Effect; Mozart’s compositions offer a particular combination of sound frequencies that help the proper development of the brain.

In another study carried out in 1993, a series of volunteers was subjected to different IQ tests. A week later, the experiment was repeated, with different content, accompanying the experiment with Mozart as background music.
The effects were undeniable. The performance of the volunteers increased dramatically. However, in no case did the Mozart Effect extend beyond fifteen minutes after the subjects heard the last note of the musician.

Interestingly, the Mozart Effect is only repeated, on a smaller scale, in a single composer: Ludwig Van Beethoven.
Piano Sonata No. 14, called Quasi una fantasia, and popularly known as Moonlight Sonata (Mondscheinsonate), produces effects analogous to Mozart’s notes.
This coincidence revived that old legend about the demon Nurmur, who is credited with the personal friendship of both Mozart and Beethoven.

Now why does the Mozart Effect seem to only last 15 minutes?
Perhaps the playwright Sacha Guitry was right when he argued:
I understood that the silence that comes after Mozart is also a work of Mozart.
(Quand on à understood du Mozart, le silence qui suit est encore du Mozart)

I personally am a big Mozart listener. Does his and other similar compositors’ pieces enhance my mental capacity? I honestly cannot tell you for sure.

What i can confirm though is the serenity, comfort and warmth that fill me every time i listen to them no matter how many times i play them…