Notes in music?

[Clever Hans]

Hello, Joe, a nice surprise to meet you again here. Yes, considering the circumstances I am still doing well, and I hope that you are doing well too.

My post above was most about traditional musical notation, and it is obvious, that the shortcoming of this as to more precise indications invites to a large number of  individual interpretations. But I think this is a strength, - because if we knew in microdetails, what the composer wanted, the performers role would vanish, and interpretations would be repetitive and monotone and in the end boring.

Yes, had a couple kids, and life got crazy, but I'm well and have missed our conversations.

I agree completely.

[Florestan]

I can't choose either side because sometimes music can evoke strong emotions within me and shake my very core, but, on other occasions, I'm only sweep away by the sheer sound of the music. This is why I don't subscribe to either ideologies --- not that Liszt or Stravinsky are wrong, but I simply can't confine something as complex as a reaction to the music to someone else's opinion or feeling towards music.

I don't see Liszt's statement as being about how any listener should listen to his music, but as an explicit statement of design from his part when composing it. He tried to translate into music his strong sensations and impressions. Would he have tried this, let alone openly proclaim it, if he hadn't been fully confident in the power of music to express sensations and impressions? Obviously he had no interest in sound for its own sake. This doesn't mean that you can't listen to it for the sake of sound only, it means just that Liszt intended another type of engagement from the part of his listeners. (We should bear in mind that the way his contemporaries listened to music, any music not just his, was not our way, at least not on a large scale.)

[ritter]

I don't see Liszt's statement as being about how any listener should listen to his music, but as an explicit statement of design from his part when composing it. He tried to translate into music his strong sensations and impressions. Would he have tried this, let alone openly proclaim it, if he hadn't been fully confident in the power of music to express sensations and impressions? Obviously he had no interest in sound for its own sake. This doesn't mean that you can't listen to it for the sake of sound only, it means just that Liszt intended another type of engagement from the part of his listeners. (We should bear in mind that the way his contemporaries listened to music, any music not just his, was not our way, at least not on a large scale.)

Fortunately for all of us, works of art become independent beings once they reach the public, and to a great extent the author loses control over them...

[Florestan]

works of art become independent beings once they reach the public, and to a great extent the author loses control over them...

Of course they do, but acknowledging this obvious fact does not automatically translate into claiming that the artist did not intend it to convey any specific content and meaning.

[ritter]

Of course they do, but acknowledging this obvious fact does not automatically translate into claiming that the artist did not intend it to convey any specific content and meaning.

Milton Babbitt famously wrote the article "Who Cares if You Listen?". Well, one could also say "Who cares what the composer intended?  (I know, I know, non sequitur, argumentum ad consequentiam, et al.  )

[Florestan]

Milton Babbitt famously wrote the article "Who Cares if You Listen?".

To which the audience responded: "Who cares if you compose?"   

Well, one could also say "Who cares what the composer intended?

Liszt stated his intent explicitly. In listening to his music, we can choose to ignore it altogether, or to take it into consideration. What we can't do is to pretend the intent did not exist.

Besides, the question is absurd. The music exists precisely because of what the composer intended. Without the latter we wouldn't have had the former in the first place.

[some guy]

Ritter, Babbitt did write an article, which was entitled "Who cares if you listen?" but that's not Babbitt's title. When that article started out, as a lecture, it was called "Off the cuff," and when it solidified into an article, that title was "The composer as specialist," a title that actually fits the contents of the article.

Even edited by Musical America to make it fit their provocative title, it still didn't really match with it.

Hardly anyone has read that article. Anyone who has can see plainly that "Who cares if you listen?" really fits nothing that's in the article.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

I do rather think that half this conversation is driven by people not identifying what they even think counts as "emotion".

My viewpoint is not to deny that there is an emotional response listening to music. As was pointed out, the sense of awe or curiosity I described at listening to certain pieces of music is an emotional response, although it is not the "program" of the music. I would never deny it is very common for composers to write a piece with the idea of expressing an emotional state. In some cases the cultural cues are so unmistakable that almost every listener will recognize them. (A stereotypical funeral march will not be mistaken for a joyful jig.) My point is that the emotional state that inspires the composer and which he or she "expresses" in the creation of the music is not an intrinsic characteristic of the music. This conclusion is not motivated by philosophical notions, it is motivated by my experience that I often have a different emotional response to a piece than the composers expressed intent, or to other listeners, or to my own on a subsequent listening. And I find the most "moving" pieces are typically the ones which are ambiguous, and in which I can find different emotional responses.

To give an analogy, Messiaen had a form of synesthesia in which different sounds were perceived as having color. He used these color associations as the basis of his compositions, and invented scales which exploited this sound/color mapping. His scores contain indications of the color associated with a given passage. Well, most people don't have synesthesia and even people with synesthesia don't necessarily have the same color associations as Messiaen. But the music he created is unique and beautiful. The color associations guided his creation even if they were in his mind. The music of a certain "color" has some unique property, but not necessarily perceived as a color by a listener. He wrote a passage which to him was gold and blue, and someone might listen to it and perceive it as wistful, someone might perceive it as awestruck, someone else might perceive it as violet and someone else might perceive it as cacophony. I think of color in Messiaen's music analogous to "emotion" in music.

As I said, this is my experience of music.

[Florestan]

Hardly anyone has read that article. Anyone who has can see plainly that "Who cares if you listen?" really fits nothing that's in the article.

I have read it, several times, and it fits in the general argument alright.

[Florestan]

To give an analogy, Messiaen had a form of synesthesia in which different sounds were perceived as having color. He used these color associations as the basis of his compositions, and invented scales which exploited this sound/color mapping. His scores contain indications of the color associated with a given passage. Well, most people don't have synesthesia and even people with synesthesia don't necessarily have the same color associations as Messiaen. But the music he created is unique and beautiful. The color associations guided his creation even if they were in his mind. The music of a certain "color" has some unique property, but not necessarily perceived as a color by a listener. He wrote a passage which to him was gold and blue, and someone might listen to it and perceive it as wistful, someone might perceive it as awestruck, someone else might perceive it as violet and someone else might perceive it as cacophony. I think of color in Messiaen's music analogous to "emotion" in music.

You have chosen an extreme example (synesthesia) to illustrate an average situation (what the composer intended is not necessarily what the listener perceives). As a physicist you should have known better than that. 

And even so: Rachmaninoff was highly skeptical of synesthesia and poked fun at it in a conversation with Rimskly-Korsakov and Scriabin, who were avowed synesthesists. They pointed out to him that the scene in The Miserly Knight where a huge amount of gold is counted and boasted upon is scored in D-major, a key both of them associated with intense yellow.  (Too lazy to find the source right right now but it's somewhere on the internet.)

Please, what do you make of this:

According to our esteemed fellow GMG-er Mandryka, here are three emotional reactions to Bach's cello suites, by three world-class cellists:

Rostropovich:

g maj: innocent and childlike
d min: hurt and sorrowful like a teenager poet
c maj: a swaggering crown prince
e flat maj: a philosopher peering into the depths
c min: melancholy
d maj: innocence regained

Casals:

g maj: optimistic
d min: tragic
c maj: heroic
e flat maj: grandiose
c min: tempestuous
d maj: bucolic

Ma:

g maj: nature at play
d min: journey to light
c maj: celebration
e flat maj: building
c min: struggles for hope
d maj: epiphany

Well, let's see what we have:

g maj: innocent and childlike / optimistic / nature at play --- Fairly consistent or at least not mutually exclusive.

d min: hurt and sorrowful like a teenager poet / tragic / journey to light ---  The first two, fairly consistent or at least not mutually exclusive; the third, radically different than the others.

c maj: a swaggering crown prince /  heroic / celebration --- Fairly consistent or at least not mutually exclusive.

e flat maj: a philosopher peering into the depths / grandiose / building --- Fairly consistent or at least nothing mutually exclusive (one can build a grandiose philosophical system)

c min: melancholy / tempestuous / struggles for hope --- The first radically different than the others, the other two fairly consistent or at least not mutually exclusive (can struggles for hope be anything else than tempestuous?)

d maj: innocence regained / bucolic / epiphany --- Fairly consistent or at least not mutually exclusive.

Summary: Three world-class musicians, with three different backgrounds, are mostly in agreement about their emotional reactions to Bach's cello suites; the radically different reactions are few and far between. (And we should take into account the very important fact that this happens with respect to scores which contains no musical indications whatsoever other than titles, let alone extramusical indications or titles).

Conclusion: Music, even when presented without any explicit extramusical title or indication whatsoever, does ellicit from seasoned musicians (ie people deeply immersed and versed in what music is and how it works) fairly consistent emotional reactions.

Now, come Scarpia and some guy and tell us that it's all a figment of their imagination and that there's nothing in those cello suites other than a combination of sounds for its own sake.

(Source: http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,21492.msg1218951.html#msg1218951)

[some guy]

I just ran across an interesting bit in An Avenue of Stone,* that's apropos to some of the colloquy on this thread. It's a short bit, so I'll just go ahead and quote most of it (the first speaker is a woman at a party and the second is the first person narrator of the novel):

"'Why do you young people pretend to see anything in this modern art? How can you go and look at a Gainsborough one day, and then admire [Picasso] the next?'

I should have liked to have told her that I was not a young person, but a polite one approaching middle life; that the form of her question implied impoliteness to myself; that I would prefer not to waste my time giving her a reply to which she would not trouble to listen, the whole of her delight having lain in the query...."

*Pamela Hansford Johnson, 1947

[prémont]

My viewpoint is not to deny that there is an emotional response listening to music. As was pointed out, the sense of awe or curiosity I described at listening to certain pieces of music is an emotional response, although it is not the "program" of the music. I would never deny it is very common for composers to write a piece with the idea of expressing an emotional state. In some cases the cultural cues are so unmistakable that almost every listener will recognize them. (A stereotypical funeral march will not be mistaken for a joyful jig.) My point is that the emotional state that inspires the composer and which he or she "expresses" in the creation of the music is not an intrinsic characteristic of the music. This conclusion is not motivated by philosophical notions, it is motivated by my experience that I often have a different emotional response to a piece than the composers expressed intent, or to other listeners, or to my own on a subsequent listening. And I find the most "moving" pieces are typically the ones which are ambiguous, and in which I can find different emotional responses.

As I said, this is my experience of music.

Well put.

[San Antone]

Ritter, Babbitt did write an article, which was entitled "Who cares if you listen?" but that's not Babbitt's title. When that article started out, as a lecture, it was called "Off the cuff," and when it solidified into an article, that title was "The composer as specialist," a title that actually fits the contents of the article.

Even edited by Musical America to make it fit their provocative title, it still didn't really match with it.

Hardly anyone has read that article. Anyone who has can see plainly that "Who cares if you listen?" really fits nothing that's in the article.

It's been years since I read the article, but I seem to remember that his major point was that the university (and a community of academics) was the appropriate audience for new music. I think he compared it to the community of experimental science where specialists were the only ones who could understand and appreciate the work.  That is, the general population were not the target audience for his (and presumably like minded composers') music.  If I have mis-remembered the article, I trust you will correct me.

I think that the listening experience is a complex event and music is a complex entity, which can offer many variables for appreciation.  For me it is not a question of either/or (i.e. associating emotions with the music or listening to just "the music itself") but that both sensory experiences occur and can be appreciated. 

[Ken B]

I have read it, several times, and it fits in the general argument alright.

The title is most apt. And Babbitt never disavowed it until decades later when that attitude was no longer fashionable.

[Florestan]

It's been years since I read the article, but I seem to remember that his major point was that the university (and a community of academics) was the appropriate audience for new music. I think he compared it to the community of experimental science where specialists were the only ones who could understand and appreciate the work.  That is, the general population were not the target audience for his (and presumably like minded composers') music.  If I have mis-remembered the article, I trust you will correct me.

Here is the whole thing.

"Who Cares if You Listen?"
Milton Babbitt, High Fidelity (Feb. 1958)

This article might have been entitled "The Composer as Specialist" or, alternatively, and perhaps less contentiously, "The Composer as Anachronism." For I am concerned with stating an attitude towards the indisputable facts of the status and condition of the composer of what we will, for the moment, designate as "serious," "advanced," contemporary music. his composer expends an enormous amount of time and energy- and, usually, considerable money- on the creation of a commodity which has little, no, or negative commodity value. e is, in essence, a "vanity" composer. he general public is largely unaware of and uninterested in his music. he majority of performers shun it and resent it. Consequently, the music is little performed, and then primarily at poorly attended concerts before an audience consisting in the main of fellow 'professionals'. t best, the music would appear to be for, of, and by specialists.

Towards this condition of musical and societal "isolation," a variety of attitudes has been expressed, usually with the purpose of assigning blame, often to the music itself, occasionally to critics or performers, and very occasionally to the public. But to assign blame is to imply that this isolation is unnecessary and undesirable. t is my contention that, on the contrary, this condition is not only inevitable, but potentially advantageous for the composer and his music. From my point of view, the composer would do well to consider means of realizing, consolidating, and extending the advantages.

The unprecedented divergence between contemporary serious music and its listeners, on the one hand, and traditional music and its following, on the other, is not accidental and- most probably- not transitory. Rather, it is a result of a half-century of revolution in musical thought, a revolution whose nature and consequences can be compared only with, and in many respects are closely analogous to, those of the mid-nineteenth-century evolution in theoretical physics The immediate and profound effect has been the necessity of the informed musician to reexamine and probe the very foundations of his art. He has been obliged to recognize the possibility, and actuality, of alternatives to what were once regarded as musical absolutes. He lives no longer in a unitary musical universe of "common practice," but in a variety of universes of diverse practice.

This fall from musical innocence is, understandably, as disquieting to some as it is challenging to others, but in any event the process is irreversible; and the music that reflects the full impact of this revolution is, in many significant respects, a truly "new" music, apart from the often highly sophisticated and complex constructive methods of any one composition or group of compositions, the very minimal properties characterizing this body of music are the sources of its "difficulty," "unintelligibility," and- isolation. In indicating the most general of these properties, I shall make reference to no specific works, since I wish to avoid the independent issue of evaluation. The reader is at liberty to supply his own instances; if he cannot (and, granted the condition under discussion, this is a very real possibility) let him be assured that such music does exist.

First. This music employs a tonal vocabulary which is more "efficient" than that of the music of the past, or its derivatives. This is not necessarily a virtue in itself, but it does make possible a greatly increased number or pitch simultaneities, successions, and relationships. his increase in efficiency necessarily reduces the "redundancy" of the language, and as a result the intelligible communication of the work demands increased accuracy from the transmitter (the performer) and activity from the receiver (the listener). Incidentally, it is this circumstance, among many others, that has created the need for purely electronic media of "performance." More importantly for us, it makes ever heavier demands upon the training of the listener's perceptual capacities.

Second. Along with this increase of meaningful pitch materials, the number of functions associated with each component of the musical event also has been multiplied. In the simplest possible terms. Each such "atomic" event is located in a five-dimensional musical space determined by pitch-class, register, dynamic, duration, and timbre. These five components not only together define the single event, but, in the course of a work, the successive values of each component create an individually coherent structure, frequently in parallel with the corresponding structures created by each of the other components. Inability to perceive and remember precisely the values of any of these components results in a dislocation of the event in the work's musical space, an alternation of its relation to a other events in the work, and-thus-a falsification of the composition's total structure. For example, an incorrectly performed or perceived dynamic value results in destruction of the work's dynamic pattern, but also in false identification of other components of the event (of which this dynamic value is a part) with corresponding components of other events so creating incorrect pitch, registral, timbral, and durational associations. It is this high degree of "determinancy" that most strikingly differentiates such music from, for example, a popular song. A popular song is only very partially determined, since it would appear to retain its germane characteristics under considerable alteration of register, rhythmic texture, dynamics, harmonic structure, timbre, and other qualities.

The preliminary differentiation of musical categories by means of this reasonable and usable criterion of "degree of determinacy" offends those who take it to be a definition of qualitative categories, which-of course-it need not always be. Curiously, their demurrers usually take the familiar form of some such "democratic" counterdefinition as: "There is no such thing as 'serious' and 'popular' music." There is only 'good' and 'bad' music." As a public service, let me offer those who still patiently await the revelation of the criteria of Absolute Good an alternative criterion which possesses, at least, the virtue of immediate and irrefutable applicability: "There is no such thing as 'serious' and 'popular' music. There is only music whose title begins with the letter 'X,' and music whose title does not."

Third, musical compositions of the kind under discussion possess a high degree of contextuality and autonomy. That is, the structural characteristics of a given work are less representative of a general class of characteristics than they are unique to the individual work itself. Particularly, principles of relatedness, upon which depends immediate coherence of continuity, are more likely to evolve in the course of the work than to be derived from generalized assumptions. Here again greater and new demands are made upon the perceptual and conceptual abilities of the listener.

Fourth, and finally. Although in many fundamental respects this music is "new," it often also represents a vast extension of the methods of other musics, derived from a considered and extensive knowledge of their dynamic principles. For, concomitant with the "revolution in music," perhaps even an integral aspect thereof, has been the development of analytical theory, concerned with the systematic formulation of such principles to the end of greater efficiency, economy, and understanding. Compositions so rooted necessarily ask comparable knowledge and experience from the listener. Like all communication, this music presupposes a suitably equipped receptor. am aware that "tradition" has it that the lay listener, by virtue of some undefined, transcendental faculty, always is able to arrive at a musical judgment absolute in its wisdom if not always permanent in its validity. regret my inability to accord this declaration of faith the respect due its advanced age.

Deviation from this tradition is bound to dismiss the contemporary music of which I have been talking into "isolation." Nor do I see how or why the situation should be otherwise. Why should the layman be other than bored and puzzled by what he is unable to understand, music or anything else? It is only the translation of this boredom and puzzlement into resentment and denunciation that seems to me indefensible. After all, the public does have its own music, its ubiquitous music: music to eat by, to read by, to dance by, and to be impressed by. Why refuse to recognize the possibility that contemporary music has reached a stage long since attained by other forms of activity? The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. But to this, a double standard is invoked, with the words music is music," implying also that "music is just music." Why not, then, equate the activities of the radio repairman with those of the theoretical physicist, on the basis of the dictum that "physics is physics." It is not difficult to find statements like the following, from the New York Times of September 8, 1 957: "The scientific level of the conference is so high... that there are in the world only 120 mathematicians specializing in the field who could contribute." Specialized music on the other hand, far from signifying "height" of musical level, has been charged with "decadence," even as evidence of an insidious "conspiracy."

It often has been remarked that only in politics and the "arts" does the layman regard himself as an expert, with the right to have his opinion heard. In the realm of politics he knows that this right, in the form of a vote, is guaranteed by fiat. Comparably, in the realm of public music, the concertgoer is secure in the knowledge that the amenities of concert going protect his firmly stated "I didn't like it" from further scrutiny. Imagine, if you can, a layman chancing upon a lecture on "Pointwise Periodic Homeomorphisms." At the conclusion, he announces: "I didn't like it," Social conventions being what they are in such circles, someone might dare inquire: "Why not?" Under duress, our layman discloses precise reasons for his failure to enjoy himself; he found the hall chilly, the lecturer's voice unpleasant, and he was suffering the digestive aftermath of a poor dinner. His interlocutor understandably disqualifies these reasons as irrelevant to the content and value of the lecture, and the development of mathematics is left undisturbed. If the concertgoer is at all versed in the ways of musical lifesmanship, he also will offer reasons for his "I didn't like it" - in the form of assertions that the work in question is "inexpressive," "undramatic," "lacking in poetry," etc., etc., tapping that store of vacuous equivalents hallowed by time for: "I don't like it, and I cannot or will not state why." The concertgoer's critical authority is established beyond the possibility of further inquiry. Certainly he is not responsible for the circumstance that musical discourse is a never-never land of semantic confusion, the last resting place of all those verbal and formal fallacies, those hoary dualisms that have been banished from rational discourse Perhaps he has read, in a widely consulted and respected book on the history of music, the following: "to call him (Tchaikovsky) the 'modern Russian Beethoven' is footless, Beethoven being patently neither modern nor Russian..." Or, the following, by an eminent "nonanalytic" philosopher: "The music of Lourie' is an ontological music... It is born in the singular roots of being, the nearest possible juncture of the soul and the spirit..." How unexceptionable the verbal peccadilloes of the average concertgoer appear beside these masterful models. Or, perhaps, in search of "real" authority, he has acquired his critical vocabulary from the pronouncements of officially "eminent" composers, whose eminence, in turn, is founded largely upon just such assertions as the concertgoer has learned to regurgitate. This cycle is of slight moment in a world where circularity is one of the norms of criticism. Composers (and performers), wittingly or unwittingly assuming the character of "talented children" and "inspired idiots" generally ascribed to them, are singularly adept at the conversion of personal tastes into general principles. Music they do not like is "not music," composers whose music they do not like are "not composers

In search of what to think and how to say it, the layman may turn to newspapers and magazines. Here he finds conclusive evidence for the proposition that "music is music." The science editor of such publications contents himself with straightforward reporting, usually news of the "factual" sciences; books and articles not intended for popular consumption are not reviewed. Whatever the reason, such matters are left to professional journals. The music critic admits no comparable differentiation. We may feel, with some justice, that music which presents itself in the market place of the concert hall automatically offers itself to public approval or disapproval. We may feel, again with some justice, that to omit the expected criticism of the "advanced" work would be to do the composer an injustice in his assumed quest for, if nothing else, public notice and "professional recognition." The critic, at least to this extent, is himself a victim of the leveling of categories.

Here, then, are some of the factors determining the climate of the public world of music. Perhaps we should not have overlooked those pockets of "power" where prizes, awards, and commissions are dispensed, where music is adjudged guilty, not only without the right to be confronted by its accuser, but without the right to be confronted by the accusations. Or those well-meaning souls who exhort the public "just to listen to more contemporary music," apparently on the theory that familiarity breeds passive acceptance. Or those, often the same well-meaning souls, who remind the composer of his "obligation to the public," while the public's obligation to the composer is fulfilled, manifestly, by mere physical presence in the concert hall or before loudspeaker or- more authoritatively- by committing to memory the numbers of phonograph and amplifier models. Or the intricate social world within this musical world where the salon becomes bazaar, and music itself becomes an ingredient of verbal canapés for cocktail conversation.

I say all this not to present a picture of a virtuous music in a sinful world, but to point up the problems of a special music in an alien and inapposite world. And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition. By so doing, the separation between the domains would be defined beyond any possibility of confusion of categories, and the composer would be free to pursue a private life of professional achievement, as opposed to a public life of unprofessional compromise and exhibitionism

But how, it may be asked, will this serve to secure the means of survival or the composer and his music? One answer is that after all such a private life is what the university provides the scholar and the scientist. It is only proper that the university, which-significantly-has provided so many contemporary composers with their professional training and general education, should provide a home for the "complex," "difficult," and "problematical" in music. Indeed, the process has begun; and if it appears to proceed too slowly, I take consolation in the knowledge that in this respect, too, music seems to be in historically retarded parallel with now sacrosanct fields of endeavor. In E. T. Bell's Men of Mathematics, we read: "In the eighteenth century the universities were not the principal centers of research in Europe. hey might have become such sooner than they did but for the classical tradition and its understandable hostility to science. Mathematics was close enough to antiquity to be respectable, but physics, being more recent, was suspect. Further, a mathematician in a university of the time would have been expected to put much of his effort on elementary teaching; his research, if any, would have been an unprofitable luxury..." A simple substitution of "musical composition" for "research," of "academic" for "classical," of "music" for "physics," and of "composer" for "mathematician," provides a strikingly accurate picture of the current situation. And as long as the confusion I have described continues to exist, how can the university and its community assume other than that the composer welcomes and courts public competition with the historically certified products of the past, and the commercially certified products of the present?

Perhaps for the same reason, the various institutes of advanced research and the large majority of foundations have disregarded this music's need for means of survival. I do not wish to appear to obscure the obvious differences between musical composition and scholarly research, although it can be contended that these differences are no more fundamental than the differences among the various fields of study. I do question whether these differences, by their nature, justify the denial to music's development of assistance granted these other fields. Immediate "practical" applicability (which may be said to have its musical analogue in "immediate extensibility of a compositional technique") is certainly not a necessary condition for the support of scientific research. And if it be contended that such research is so supported because in the past it has yielded eventual applications, one can counter with, for example, the music of Anton Webern, which during the composer's lifetime was regarded (to the very limited extent that it was regarded at all) as the ultimate in hermetic, specialized, and idiosyncratic composition; today, some dozen years after the composer's death, his complete works have been recorded by a major record company, primarily- I suspect- as a result of the enormous influence this music has had on the postwar, nonpopular, musical world. I doubt that scientific research is any more secure against predictions of ultimate significance than is musical composition. Finally, if it be contended that research, even in its least "practical" phases, contributes to the sum of knowledge in the particular realm, what possibly can contribute more to our knowledge of music than a genuinely original composition?

Granting to music the position accorded other arts and sciences promises the sole substantial means of survival for the music I have been describing. Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed. But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live.

[Madiel]

My viewpoint is not to deny that there is an emotional response listening to music. As was pointed out, the sense of awe or curiosity I described at listening to certain pieces of music is an emotional response, although it is not the "program" of the music. I would never deny it is very common for composers to write a piece with the idea of expressing an emotional state. In some cases the cultural cues are so unmistakable that almost every listener will recognize them. (A stereotypical funeral march will not be mistaken for a joyful jig.) My point is that the emotional state that inspires the composer and which he or she "expresses" in the creation of the music is not an intrinsic characteristic of the music. This conclusion is not motivated by philosophical notions, it is motivated by my experience that I often have a different emotional response to a piece than the composers expressed intent, or to other listeners, or to my own on a subsequent listening. And I find the most "moving" pieces are typically the ones which are ambiguous, and in which I can find different emotional responses.

To give an analogy, Messiaen had a form of synesthesia in which different sounds were perceived as having color. He used these color associations as the basis of his compositions, and invented scales which exploited this sound/color mapping. His scores contain indications of the color associated with a given passage. Well, most people don't have synesthesia and even people with synesthesia don't necessarily have the same color associations as Messiaen. But the music he created is unique and beautiful. The color associations guided his creation even if they were in his mind. The music of a certain "color" has some unique property, but not necessarily perceived as a color by a listener. He wrote a passage which to him was gold and blue, and someone might listen to it and perceive it as wistful, someone might perceive it as awestruck, someone else might perceive it as violet and someone else might perceive it as cacophony. I think of color in Messiaen's music analogous to "emotion" in music.

As I said, this is my experience of music.

We are perhaps coming at this from different ends. You take the examples where there is not a really obvious expression of a particular emotion that nearly everyone can figure out, and conclude that emotion is therefore not an intrinsic quality.

I take the examples where it's really obvious that a particular emotion was aimed at, and conclude that it's wrong to deny that music can have emotional content.

I would note that I never claimed that the emotion was always unambiguous or easy to put into words. Which is why I baulked at how long it would take to develop even halfway decent words on Barcarolle No.5...

I don't find synaesthesia terribly helpful because it's well documented that these colour combinations are completely unique to the individual synaesthete. Two people with synaesthesia might both associate colours with keys but will never agree as to what colour G Major is because it's completely dependent on their brain wiring. The capacity for agreement simply doesn't exist. Whereas we can demonstrate many cases where many listeners will agree on what a piece of music evokes.

[Florestan]

In his autobiographical Recollections, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of colour and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight accorded with their claim: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny."

Source: https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/alexander-scriabin-and-artificial-synesthesia/26946

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

We are perhaps coming at this from different ends. You take the examples where there is not a really obvious expression of a particular emotion that nearly everyone can figure out, and conclude that emotion is therefore not an intrinsic quality.

I take the examples where it's really obvious that a particular emotion was aimed at, and conclude that it's wrong to deny that music can have emotional content.

I would note that I never claimed that the emotion was always unambiguous or easy to put into words. Which is why I baulked at how long it would take to develop even halfway decent words on Barcarolle No.5...

I don't find synaesthesia terribly helpful because it's well documented that these colour combinations are completely unique to the individual synaesthete. Two people with synaesthesia might both associate colours with keys but will never agree as to what colour G Major is because it's completely dependent on their brain wiring. The capacity for agreement simply doesn't exist. Whereas we can demonstrate many cases where many listeners will agree on what a piece of music evokes.

I don't regard this as a question that has a definitive provable answer, so I think the best we can do is lay out our reasons and try to expose the assumptions that they rest upon.

Yes, there are works which absolutely everyone can figure out are sad, or happy. No one can mistake the opening of the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica symphony as happy music. No one could mistake Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" for sad music. I would say that a funeral march is sad because it is slow, it contains a recognizable rhythmic motif in the accompaniment and it contains melodic elements imitating weeping or lamenting. I would call those external associations rather than intrinsic characteristics of the music. Stereotypical happy music has a brisk tempo and lively jumpy melodies suggestive of dancing. Again, I'd describe those as external associations. They are the stage lighting under which the music will unfold in time. It doesn't take a genius to play on those tropes and write stereotypical sad or happy music. But when it comes to the real substance of music I find it just as ambiguous as Messiaen's color associations. I am well aware, and actually emphasized in my post above, the fact that the colors are highly personal and map differently in different individuals with synesthesia (let alone people who do not experience synesthesia). Messiaen writes it as blue and we have to decide if it is happy, sad, angry, resolute, etc. That is my point! For music which is not dominated by happy or sad tropes, I find the emotional 'content' to be just as individual. Faure writes it as sad, I hear it as content, or angry, or ecstatic. As I mentioned, I experienced Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra finale as grim, and later learned that Bartok intended it as boundless joy. I find myself having strong emotional associations with music that are unrelated to the composer's expressed intent. That is why I love Faure so much. His mature music eschews stereotypical cues for 'happy' or 'sad', allowing a much richer field for the ambiguous expressiveness of the music. Another example is Mozart, Symphony No 39 finale. It has a principal theme which is 'happy' incarnate, but any composer of the era could have written such a theme. But that theme sets the stage for episodes of development which I find to have an utterly unfathomable beauty and which are beyond happy and sad, unlike anything else I have experienced. They are the reason I listen to the symphony.

So maybe the answer is yes, music can have passages which obviously evoke happy or sad, but I find those passages the least interesting part of the music and think of them as setting the stage for the actual 'music' which are emotionally ambiguous and individual at a profound level.

[Karl Henning]

I don't regard this as a question that has a definitive provable answer, so I think the best we can do is lay out our reasons and try to expose the assumptions that they rest upon.

Yes, there are works which absolutely everyone can figure out are sad, or happy. No one can mistake the opening of the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica symphony as happy music. No one could mistake Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" for sad music. I would say that a funeral march is sad because it is slow, it contains a recognizable rhythmic motif in the accompaniment and it contains melodic elements imitating weeping or lamenting. I would call those external associations rather than intrinsic characteristics of the music. Stereotypical happy music has a brisk tempo and lively jumpy melodies suggestive of dancing. Again, I'd describe those as external associations. They are the stage lighting under which the music will unfold in time. It doesn't take a genius to play on those tropes and write stereotypical sad or happy music. But when it comes to the real substance of music I find it just as ambiguous as Messiaen's color associations. I am well aware, and actually emphasized in my post above, the fact that the colors are highly personal and map differently in different individuals with synesthesia (let alone people who do not experience synesthesia). Messiaen writes it as blue and we have to decide if it is happy, sad, angry, resolute, etc. That is my point! For music which is not dominated by happy or sad tropes, I find the emotional 'content' to be just as individual. Faure writes it as sad, I hear it as content, or angry, or ecstatic. As I mentioned, I experienced Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra finale as grim, and later learned that Bartok intended it as boundless joy. I find myself having strong emotional associations with music that are unrelated to the composer's expressed intent. That is why I love Faure so much. His mature music eschews stereotypical cues for 'happy' or 'sad', allowing a much richer field for the ambiguous expressiveness of the music. Another example is Mozart, Symphony No 39 finale. It has a principal theme which is 'happy' incarnate, but any composer of the era could have written such a theme. But that theme sets the stage for episodes of development which I find to have an utterly unfathomable beauty and which are beyond happy and sad, unlike anything else I have experienced. They are the reason I listen to the symphony.

So maybe the answer is yes, music can have passages which obviously evoke happy or sad, but I find those passages the least interesting part of the music and think of them as setting the stage for the actual 'music' which are emotionally ambiguous and individual at a profound level.

I'm going to miss this chap.

[some guy]

I don't hear the opening to the second movement of Beethoven's third symphony as "happy," but neither do I hear it as "sad."

It is terrifically exciting, I know that. Expecially the way that the "tune" gets interrupted by rhythmically extraneous eruptions that are neither extraneous nor do they interrupt. And as the movement progresses, circling around to the same point ("same") over and over again but giving something different each time, it just gets more exciting. It is a brilliant piece of music that I never tire of hearing. If it were simply "sad" (as in funerals are sad), it would doubtless pall after awhile. (Hey, that joke was just begging to be told.) But it doesn't. That's because it is a rich and various piece of music that transcends such trivial events as sadness or happiness.

In fact, despite what I said about excitement, what really strikes me about any art is how well it can make me forget about myself at all. Art takes over the whole space, as it were, leaving room only for itself. In the presence of such, I feel as the "we" in Rilke's Elegy confronting (confronted by) beauty, awed because it serenely disdains to destroy me. So you see how aggravating it can be to hear that the choice is a binary one between "evokes emotions (such as happiness or sorrow)" and "analysis." And no, I cannot reconcile the contradiction. I see it, too--that I "disappear" as an entity and that I simultaneously am aware, as an entity, that I'm being spared annihilation--but that's as far as it goes. Maybe that's the real power of art, to make one vanish while allowing one to continue to exist.

It's a neat trick, and it works, every time.