[Smt-talk] Beethoven's Sonatas

[Gregory Karl]

> To the sources on music and emotion Nick Reyland has suggested, I  
> would add Jenefer Robinson's book, Deeper than Reason, which deals  
> with emotion in the arts generally but which has substantial  
> treatment of music.
>
> Josh,
>
> Have you vetted your methodology for those devious gremlins Janet  
> Levy referred to as "covert and casual values?" (See her  
> illuminating "Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings in  
> Music," J of Musicology 5 (1987)). I ask because, while one can  
> certainly get substantial intersubjective agreement among listeners  
> in attributing human emotional qualities to musical passages, this  
> does not mean the basis of the agreement actually resides in  
> substantive or formally salient features of the music; it could  
> just be that the subjects have all learned the rules to the same  
> game, one grounded in casual values as pervasive as the air we  
> breathe. That one of music's primary functions is expressing  
> emotions, for example, is an axiom of popular musical aesthetics  
> with which we have all been bludgeoned from birth, along with its  
> crustier corollaries (e.g., "If you're gonna sing the blues, you  
> gotta pay your dues."), and one can readily learn by peer consensus  
> to apply one-word emotional descriptors to songs—it's a normal part  
> of socialization. And those acculturated with Classical music have  
> a more direct line to this "casual value's" roots in Romantic  
> aesthetics. But why specific emotions rather than, say, the dynamic  
> qualities of motion, dramatic action, gesture or posture? Is there  
> really good reason to believe this conventional activity of  
> emotional labeling is other than a diverting parlor game? Note: I  
> am not suggesting that exploring this intersubjective agreement is  
> not worthwhile; I'm just cautioning that one should not assume it  
> has an especially meaningful relation to music's formal properties.
>
> A deeper and more pervasive value, this one in Levy's covert  
> category, is the one lurking in the final sentence of your second  
> paragraph. The phrase "musical structure contributes to emotional  
> expression" conceals a covert ontological judgment: that objective,  
> structural features, the ones we are comfortable describing in  
> technical terms, are the real substance of the music, more  
> fundamental than the expressive qualities that, secondarily, derive  
> from them. It implies a clear division between form and content  
> which may be unwarranted, especially in Beethoven. I would suggest,  
> therefore, that one should try inverting the ontology for a change,  
> to ask not how musical structure contributes to expression but  
> rather, whether some of those intensely expressive passages in  
> Beethoven's sonatas might signal a new resource Beethoven exploited  
> for articulating structure—that coherence and disruption in the  
> expressive unfolding might be a primary factor in musical  
> organization. To use an anachronistic metaphor, I think those  
> passages are evidence that Beethoven may have been exploring ways  
> of embedding the structures' control points, at least partially, in  
> the expressive domain. In sum: I believe Beethoven systematically  
> used the simulation of coherent human expressive experience as a  
> force for organizing musical structure. This notion is explored in  
> detail in my analysis of the first movement of the Appassionata  
> (Structuralism and Musical Plot, Music Theory Spectrum 19 (1997)).  
> If my testimony on the expressive qualifies of specific passages is  
> the kind you might expect from your "panel of experts," then it can  
> be found in this article.
>
> Greg Karl
> Jay NY
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 23, 2012, at 12:46 PM, Joshua Albrecht wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> Perhaps I should post some clarification.  A number of you have  
> responded to my question about the emotional expression of excerpts  
> from the Beethoven sonatas with concern about the subjective nature  
> of any response you could give, paired with some suggestion for  
> approaching the question from within a given theoretical  
> framework.  In actuality, I am interested in your subjective  
> experience of Beethoven, because what I'm really curious about is  
> how to look at subjective experience more objectively.  What I'm  
> really after is a set of excerpts that have the potential to be  
> strongly evocative of different emotions for a range of listeners.   
> The research indicates that despite the individual differences  
> between listeners in how they approach an excerpt, there is quite a  
> lot of agreement about the emotional expression perceived in a  
> given excerpt.  In order to study this more in depth, I'd like to  
> get a number of excerpts from a limited repertoire (in this case  
> Beethoven sonatas) that cover a broad range of emotions.
>
> One way of doing that would be to randomly sample excerpts from all  
> of Beethoven's piano sonatas.  The downside to this approach is  
> that I may not get a lot of variety in the emotions expressed.  In  
> other words, many of the excerpts could express the same emotions  
> (or worse, not be particularly expressive at all).  Another  
> approach (the one I'm using) is to ask a panel of experts about  
> what excerpts are particularly evocative of various emotions.   
> Getting a pool of excerpts would allow me to actually test any  
> number of theories about how musical structures contribute to  
> emotional expression in Beethoven's sonatas.
>
> Thanks again for your thoughts!
>
> Joshua Albrecht
> School of Music
> Ohio State University
>
> ____________________________ed in your subjective experience of  
> Beethoven, because what I'm really curious about is how to look at  
> subjective experience more objectively.  What I'm really after is a  
> set of excerpts that have the potential to be strongly evocative of  
> different emotions for a range of listeners.  The research  
> indicates that despite the individual differences between listeners  
> in how they approach an excerpt, there is quite a lot of agreement  
> about the emotional expression perceived in a given excerpt.  In  
> order to study this more in depth, I'd like to get a number of  
> excerpts from a limited repertoire (in this case Beethoven sonatas)  
> that cover a broad range of emotions.
>
> One way of doing that would be to randomly sample excerpts from all  
> of Beethoven's piano sonatas.  The downside to this approach is  
> that I may not get a lot of variety in the emotions expressed.  In  
> other words, many of the excerpts could express the same emotions  
> (or worse, not be particularly expressive at all).  Another  
> approach (the one I'm using) is to ask a panel of experts about  
> what excerpts are particularly evocative of various emotions.   
> Getting a pool of excerpts would allow me to actually test any  
> number of theories about how musical structures contribute to  
> emotional expression in Beethoven's sonatas.
>
> Thanks again for your thoughts!
>
> Joshua Albrecht
> School of Music
> Ohio State University
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