The Shift to Finding Emotional Meaning in Performance
It was during the Renaissance that composers and performers began to understand that the higher purpose of Music is to communicate feelings and emotion and not just an appreciation of the skill of performance. One can see this dramatic change in the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) and in a comment he made to a young singer who asked him about a specific tempo in his Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Venice, 1638). He answered that the lament in question should be sung “to the time of the soul’s feeling [affetto del animo], and not to the time of the hand.”
Another letter by Monteverdi reminds us that in those early days of court supported performance there was time available to do it right! Concerning the rehearsals of his opera, Arianna, he observed that “after it was finished and learned by heart, [then!!] five months of strenuous rehearsal took place.”
And of course it was the creation of opera at the beginning of the seventeenth century which was dedicated to the idea of having a stage production which conveyed emotions. The previous stage tradition in Italy was one of spoken drama, in Latin. We can see this new goal in many comments by the original composers of opera. Cavalieri, in the preface to his La rappresentatione di Anima (1600) says his goal is to “move listeners to different emotions, such as pity and joy, tears and laughter.”1 Caccini, in his Le Nuove Musiche, writes that the goal was “to move the emotions of the soul.”2
During the Renaissance Period there were a number of writers other than composers who struggled with the question whether Reason or the Emotions should rule the actions of men. For example in fifteenth-century England we actually find a work by John Lydgate titled, Reson and Sensuallyte. A similar contemporary work by Henry Medwall (b. 1461) is entitled Nature, but has the same theme. Here we find Nature warning man, “Let Reason govern you in every situation.”
In Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, there is an internal masque (an internal play within a play with music and dialog) performed by a group of shepherds under the title, The Battle between Reason and Passion. Here we find such dialog as,
REASON. Who Passion doth ensue, lives in annoy.
PASSION. Who Passion doth forsake, lives void of joy.
Important philosophers as well continued to argue that Reason must rule. The great Dante (1265–1321), for example, made the rather extraordinary statement that the senses “exist for reason’s sake alone.”3 In one of his poems, he even suggests that a sensation such as pain cannot be understood by mere experience, but must be understood by reason as well (Donne ch’avete intelletto d’armore). His strongest statement supporting the supremacy of Reason comes in another place in his The Banquet.
Anyone who sets reason aside and uses only his sensitive part lives not as a man but as a beast.4
Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), in spite of being a musician as well, was a poet of much love poetry, which include the difficulty caused by the emotion of love interfering with Reason. For example, he writes,
If to love another more than oneself – if to be always sighing and
weeping, feeding on sorrow and anger and trouble –
If to burn from afar and freeze close by – if these are the causes
that I untune [distempre] myself with love, yours will be the blame, Lady, mine the loss.
With the Baroque Period we begin to find more confidence in the emotions. Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377) offers token tribute to the idea that Reason must rule, his more personal illustrations point to the contrary. After a debate over love and its consequences, the character, Loyalty, stipulates, “A lover would be a fool to listen to you, Reason.”5 And what happens to Reason-dominated speech when Love is present?
It can force one, to cut short his words and interrupt them with sighs, drawn from the depths of his being, that render him mute and silent, and he has no choice but to remain speechless.
Saint-Evremond (1610–1703), in a letter to the Mareschal de Crequi, seemed no longer burdened with the idea of making a choice.
I can say one thing of myself, as extraordinary as true, that I never felt in myself any conflict between Passion and Reason. My Passion never opposed what I resolved out of duty; and my Reason readily complied with what a sense of pleasure inclined me to.
The great Francis Bacon (1561–1626) accepts emotions and even admits they, like Reason, are capable of good. He finds, however, a third faculty, Imagination, independent of either, but through which both Reason and the emotions operate. In fact he suggests that man is only able to function rationally because imagination forms a “confederacy” with Reason against the affections.6
Another great philosopher, David Hume (1711–1776), raises the entire subject of the emotions to a higher level than any former philosopher, even going so far as to make feeling dominant over rational ideas. No one had ever before written anything so extraordinary as the following.
All probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. It is not solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea, which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.7
Another who was inclined to raise the emotions to a level above Reason was Voltaire (1694–1778). First, he looked at the long history during which all philosophers, not to mention the Church, insisted that Reason must rule man and he found little to recommend this principle.
When one considers that Newton, Locke, Clarke, and Leibniz would have been persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, and burned at Lisbon, what are we to think of human Reason?8
Voltaire was also keenly aware that there is more to man than Reason, that there is a feeling side which, in the course of daily actions, may be even more important.
What will I gain from knowing the path of light and the gravitation of Saturn? These are sterile truths. One feeling is a thousand times more important.9
Finally we must mention Herbert Spencer (b. 1820), who was the first important philosopher to discern what modern clinical research has now established, that in fact it is our emotions which determine all our major decisions, not Reason after all. He begins by making an observation which, if one considers the development of the earliest man, must be true, that intelligence and Reason could only have been built upon the earlier foundation stones of feelings and the senses.10
In modern man, Spencer makes a finding that would have shocked, even offended 3,000 years of earlier philosophers, that “The chief component of mind is feeling.”11
And so it is the case that we are not surprised to find in a letter written by George Washington to Lafayette, “Democratic States must always feel before they can see”12 and the one by Robert Schumann, “The understanding may err, but not feelings.”13
Apart from these literary documents, it is in the comments and descriptions of the musicians themselves in which we see supremacy of the emotions beginning in the Baroque Period. Perhaps no contemporary document expresses this fundamental change to an emphasis on feelings in performance than the famous eyewitness account of a performance by Corelli.
I never met with any man that suffered his passions to hurry him away so much whilst he was playing on the violin as the famous Arcangelo Corelli, whose eyes will sometimes turn as red as fire; his countenance will be distorted, his eyeballs roll as in an agony, and he gives in so much to what he is doing that he doth not look like the same man.14
It is in Germany, in particular, where one finds the most enthusiastic and dedicated search for studying the role of the emotions in music, a study which has been sometimes called, “The Doctrine of the Affections.” The belief in this was strongly felt, as we see in the declaration by F. W. Marpurg in 1749, “All musical expression has an emotion for its foundation,”15 and in the title pages of Bach’s Clavier Ubung, Part III, and in the Goldberg Variations, Bach gives the purpose to “refresh the spirits.” As we all understand today, the most important purpose of music is to communicate feelings, a purpose to which Johann Scheibe paid tribute in 1739.
Music which does not penetrate the heart nor the soul
Does indeed consist of tones yet only is compelling to the ears,
Which nature and art have not given sound, grace, strength,
Is quite dead, and lacks spirit and vitality.16
The most accurate testimonial of the view of the Baroque composer may be the one expressed in 1711 by Heinichen. He means to complain that no theorist has really written the definitive work on the “doctrine of affections.” But he was describing musicians at large, including composers, when he admits that no one is interested in this topic. For this is how it has nearly always been: composers compose and the theorists come along later, and not before.
What a bottomless ocean we still have before us merely in the expression of words and the affections in music. And how delighted is the ear, if we perceive in a refined church composition or other music how a skilled virtuoso has attempted here and there to move the feelings of an audience through his galanterie and other devices that express the text, and in this way to find successfully the true purpose of music. Nevertheless, no one wants to search deeper into this beautiful musical Rhetorica and to invent good rules. What could one not write about musical taste, invention, accompaniment, and their nature, differences, and effects? But no one wants to investigate the matters aiming at this lofty practice or to give even the slightest introduction to it.17
And in another place Heinichen concurs that the notes alone are not sufficient.
It is impossible to find the tenderness of the soul of music with mere numeric changes of dead notes.18
The German writer, Christoph Bernhard (1627–1692), in a treatise on singing, has left a remarkable description, in 1649, of the singer’s range of emotion in the new Florentine opera style.
In the recitative style, one should take care that the voice is raised in moments of anger, and to the contrary dropped in moments of grief. Pain makes it pause; impatience hastens it. Happiness enlivens it. Desire emboldens it. Love renders it alert. Bashfulness holds it back. Hope strengthens it. Despair diminishes it. Fear keeps it down. Danger is fled with screams. If, however, a person faces up to danger, then his voice must reflect his daring and bravery.19
Marpurg confirms a wide variety of emotions in performance and provides an interesting discussion of the integrity of the performer.
All musical expression has an affect or emotion for its foundation. A philosopher when expounding or demonstrating will try to enlighten our understanding, to bring it lucidity and order. The orator, the poet, the musician attempt rather to inflame than to enlighten. The philosopher deals in combustible matter capable of glowing or yielding a temperate and moderate warmth. But in music there is only the distilled essence of this matter, the most refined part of it, which throws out thousands of the most beautiful flames, always with rapidity, sometimes with violence. The musician has therefore a thousand parts to play, a thousand characters to assume at the composer’s bidding. To what extraordinary undertakings our passions carry us! He who has the good fortune at all to experience the inspiration which lends greatness to poets, orators, artists, will be aware how vehemently and diversely our soul responds when it is given over to the emotions. Thus to interpret rightly every composition which is put in front of him a musician needs the utmost sensibility and the most felicitous powers of intuition.20
A contemporary report tells us that Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord, which, though susceptible of great variety of tone, seemed to him lacking in soul.21
The most important, and thorough, observer of German Baroque performance practice was the conductor and composer, Johann Mattheson (1681–1764). He believed the central purpose of music, after praising God, was the communication of emotion. The whole question of the “passions,” Mattheson suggests, is perhaps more the province of the philosopher than the Kapellmeister, but on a practical level it is fundamental to composer and performer if they are to communicate with the listener.22
In reflecting on the emotions in general, he observes that “most are not the best, and certainly must be curtailed or kept in check.” Love is an emotion frequently represented by music and in these cases the composer should “consult his own experience.” Sadness is second only to love in its use by composers, no doubt, he observes, “because almost everybody is unhappy.” It is for this reason that sacred music employs this emotion so effectively, because it represents the “penance and remorse, sorrow, contrition, lamentation and the recognition of our misery.”
Regarding the expression of emotions through music, Mattheson first gives several obvious illustrations which we might recognize today as simple text-painting: Joy, being an expansion of our soul, represented by large and expanded intervals; Sadness, being a “contraction of these subtle parts of our body,” represented by small intervals and Hope and Depression through obvious melodic direction. Mattheson then turns to more specific prescriptions for representing emotions through music.23
Pride, Haughtiness and Arrogance are represented by a “bold, pompous style … majestic musical figures which require a special seriousness and grandiloquent motion.” For these, the melodic line must invariably ascend. The opposite emotions of Humility, Patience, etc., are represented by “humble music with descending melody.”
Stubbornness, he writes, “deserves a special place among the affects that are appropriate to musical rhetoric,” and is represented by “so-called capricci … namely when one writes such peculiar passages in one or another voice which one is resolved not to change, cost what it may.”
For Anger, Ardor, Vengeance, Rage, Fury and other such “violent affections” it is not enough, “that one rumbles along strongly, makes a lot of noise and boldly rages: notes with many tails will simply not suffice, as many things; but each of these violent qualities requires its own particular characteristics, and, despite forceful expression, must still have a becoming singing quality.”
Hope, “is a pleasant and soothing thing, consisting of a joyful longing which fills the spirit with a certain courage.” This, therefore, “demands the loveliest use of the voice and the sweetest combination of sounds in the world.” Mattheson assigns dissonance to the expression of the unpleasant, disagreeable, frightening and horrible, although interestingly enough “the spirit even occasionally derives some peculiar sort of comfort from these.” Despair should be represented by “unusual passages and strange, mad, disordered sequences of notes.” In contrast, Composure is best represented by a “soft unison.”
He suspects most composers who fail to effectively express emotions in music do so because they do not know their own desires or what they actually wanted to achieve. But failure in this has significant implications for the listener. He says here, in effect, that whatever is written which represents only the “theory” of music communicates nothing to the listener.
It is very interesting and revealing that Mattheson defines the traditional Baroque instrumental forms not so much by tempo, as by their subjective styles. For example he finds:
- Minuet—moderate cheerfulness
- Govotta—true jubilation
- Bourree—contentment and pleasantness, not so degenerate as the gavotte
- Rigaudon—somewhat trifling joking
- La Marche—somewhat heroic and fearless, yet not wild and running
- Entree—noble and majestic
- Gigue—ardent and fleeting zeal
- Polonaise—frank and free
- Angloise—stubbornness
- Hornpipe—frivolity
- Sarabanda—to express ambition
- Courante—sweet hopefulness
- Allemanda—a content or satisfied spirit
- Chaccone—more satiating than tasteful
- Intrada—to arouse longing
With the absence of text, the performer of instrumental music must take even more careful note of the Italian expressions at the beginning of the composition for clues to the emotions. Here the reader will be surprised by Mattheson’s understanding of the characters and emotions associated with the familiar “tempo” terms.
An Adagio indicates distress; a Lamento lamentation; a Lento relief; an Andante hope; an Affetuoso love; an Allegro comfort; a Presto eagerness.
Finally, that instrumental music can indeed express emotions is obvious in practice, he observes, but “never in theory.” By this he means it is a subject difficult to write about, although he himself makes an admirable summary.
The proper goal of all music [melody] can be nothing other than the sort of diversion of the hearing through which the passions of the soul are stirred: thus no one at all will obtain this goal who is not aiming at it, who feels no affection, indeed who scarcely thinks at all of a passion; unless it is one which is involuntarily felt deeply.
By the nineteenth century it had become so evident that the purposes of music was to express feelings and emotions that for many it had become a virtual language of its own.
Schubert unburdened his heart on a sheet of music paper, just as others leave the impression of passing moods in their journals. His soul was so steeped in music that he wrote notes where others use words
Robert Schumann
Music is the speech of Passion.
Richard Wagner
…
Music, who speaks to us solely through quickening into articulate life the most universal concept of the inherently speechless Feeling.
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
Leo Tolstoy
Music is a distinct language which speaks clearly.
Felix Mendelssohn
…
People usually complain that music is so ambiguous; that it is so doubtful what they ought to think when they hear it; whereas everyone understands words. With me it is entirely the reverse. And not only with regard to an entire speech, but also with individual words; these, too, seem to me to be so ambiguous, so vague, and so easily misunderstood in comparison with genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. The thoughts which are expressed to me by a piece of music which I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary too definite.
Music is a means of communicating with people, not an aim in itself.
Modeste Moussorgsky
Music … is a language, but a language of the intangible, a kind of soul language.
Edward MacDowell
Music is an idealization of the natural language of passion.
Herbert Spencer
When one is at a loss what to say or write, well—one tries to help oneself with music.
Franz Liszt
It is a truth forever, that where the speech of man stops short, there Music’s reign begins.
Richard Wagner
Where words fail, music speaks.
Hans Christian Anderson
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
Leo Tolstoy
Emotions which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.
To sing seems a deliverance from bondage. Music expresses that which cannot be said, and which cannot be suppressed.
Victor Hugo
Language is not subtle enough, tender enough to express all we feel, and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music.
Robert Ingersoll
Notes
- Quoted in Nino Pirrotta and Elena Povoledo, Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 241. ↩︎
- p. 45 ↩︎
- The Banquet, trans. Christopher Ryan, III, xv, 4. ↩︎
- The Banquet, II, vii, 3. ↩︎
- “Le Jugement du roy de Behaigne,” trans. Wimsatt and Kibler, 154. ↩︎
- The Works of Francis Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1869), VI, 258ff, 299. ↩︎
- A Treatise of Human Nature, I, iii, section 8. ↩︎
- The Works of Voltaire, (New York: St. Hubert Guild, 1901), XXXVII, 174. ↩︎
- The Selected Letters of Voltaire, trans. Richard Brooks, 63. ↩︎
- Hector Macpherson, Spencer and Spencerism (New York: Doubley, Page, & Co., 1900), 110ff. ↩︎
- Facts and Comments (New York: Appleton & Co., 1902), 36. ↩︎
- Letter of July 25, 1785. ↩︎
- Diary of 1833. ↩︎
- O. Strunk, “Francois Raguenet, Comparison between the French and Italian Music (1702)”, in The Musical Quarterly, XXXII (1946), 419fn. ↩︎
- F. W. Marpurg, Der critische Musicus an der Spree (Berlin), September 2, 1749. ↩︎
- Poem in honor of the publication of Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), trans. Ernest Harriss (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), 74. ↩︎
- Anweisung zum Generalbass (1711). ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Quoted in Ellen Harris, Performance Practice after 1600, 110. ↩︎
- F. W. Marpurg, Der critische Musicus an der Spree (Berlin), September 2, 1749. ↩︎
- Quoted in Robert Donnington, The Interpretation of Early Music (New York, 1964), 576. ↩︎
- Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), trans. Ernest Harriss (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), I, iii, 52ff. ↩︎
- Ibid., I, iii, 72ff. ↩︎
READ NEXT: Chapter 4, Where exactly is Emotion found in Music?
