Sunday, August 1, 2021

Emotion in Music

In a very few days I will be off to Salzburg and while there you will get posts every day with comments on the city, the festival, the concerts, the food--the whole enchilada. Photos will be included! If you want to have a look at my last Salzburg excursion, just look in the sidebar archive for the posts in August 2019.

But I ran across an interesting post over at the new neo blog that you might find interesting: Emotion in Music. Neo has been running one of the more interesting blogs for years and years. She usually has an unusual take on the events of the day. Inexplicably she is also a huge Bee Gees fan, though not to the exclusion of other music. (Sorry, Neo!)

Among my drafts I have an enormous number of fragmented ones about the connection between music and emotion. It’s not something I really understand, but I keep trying to write about it nonetheless. I think some people are immune to that connection or at least less likely to be affected emotionally by music. But I certainly always have found music emotional, and some music far more emotional than other music.

By “emotional” I don’t mean a unitary thing, either. Happy, sad, excited, nostalgic, regretful, calm – those are just a few of the emotions music can stir. And I also have noticed that some music is what might be called Apollonian and some Dionysian, and that this distinction is present across and within many genres.

She embeds an interesting video of some scientific research into these questions with Oliver Sacks:

I find much scientific research into music to be just weird. Take this experiment for example: they take a somewhat random clip of Bach choral music and follow it with a somewhat random clip of Beethoven choral music as if randomly selected music by Bach and Beethoven were commensurable in some way. I think it is perfectly obvious that you could get wildly different results, perhaps specifically desirable results, if you simply chose different examples from the two composers. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach followed by the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven would surely get you utterly different results. Do scientists have no awareness of the specificity of different pieces of music? How about the Cello Suite No. 3 by Bach and then the Grosse Fuge by Beethoven?

I'm not going to do any confirming research, but I think that the Bach sample in the Nova clip was a chorale from the St. Matthew Passion and the Beethoven was from the Missa Solemnis. Correct me if I am wrong! Bach wrote probably the greatest religious music ever and he was a spectacularly wonderful writer for choir. Beethoven, not so much on either count! I have never liked his choral writing (or vocal writing generally) and he was an indifferent composer of religious music. But when it came to piano sonatas, string quartets and symphonies, he was incomparable. So yes, I suppose the brain scans were indicative of the samples chosen, but the samples chosen were a choice that proves nothing.

When it comes to music, science rarely tells us anything we don't already know.

8 comments:

  1. Bryan, best wishes for your Salzburg travels. I am looking forward to your Austrian posts, but I hope you don't plan to eat, or comment on, too many enchiladas. You should set your sights on Sachertorte, Salzburger Nockerli and Mozartkugeln. Enjoy the food that schmecks and music that delights.

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  2. Oh Sachatorte is lovely, Austrian cakes and the country's other sweet delights are really something
    -- Zotter chocolates come to mind as well. Also recall an addictive soft drink called Almdudler that I've never been able to find elsewhere.

    All the best in Salzburg, shall read your posts eagerly.

    Fwiw, I've actually encountered quite a few people who are indifferent to, or rather dislike Bach's choral writing, but enjoy his other music. In fact I have to confess that I find the Matthew Passion a bit of slog, nearly as much as I do Handel oratorios. I love many of the cantatas though.

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  3. David, I heartily concur with your advice on food! You forgot wienerschnitzel, which is a personal favorite along with a glass of weisbier!

    Steven, yes I will hunt down some Sachertorte. There is a branch of the Hotel Sacher in Salzburg.

    I guess I have always had a bit of a penchant for choral music that I may have caught from an early LP of Lasso's Complaints of Job I used to have. And then the Dona nobis pacem from Bach's B minor mass pretty much sealed the deal.

    See you all in Salzburg. I fly on Wednesday evening, but don't get there until Friday morning.

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  4. Oh how could I too forget wienerschnitzel (with cranberry sauce of course), terribly envious...

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  5. Bryan, I recall that you will see Elektra in Salzburg. I came across this review on the Financial Times page. https://www.ft.com/content/07c7a071-2b18-48d6-84bc-b57071a304c4

    It sounds like you are in for some stellar Strauss to go with the Sachertorte.

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  6. Thanks, David. I couldn't get past the paywall. I picked the Strauss opera because I have never seen one live. Salzburg, for me, is a lot about seeing and hearing things that you wouldn't hear anywhere else.

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  7. I got in just from a Google search on Salzburg 2021 reviews. Now, on the second try, I too hit the paywall. The gist of the review was that it was a first class production with a combination of music and social commentary in a high art package. The only quibble was that Elektra's voice was a bit underpowered. The other singers were very favourably reviewed. Gute Reise.

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  8. Thanks, David. I will give a review myself after I see it.

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