Emotions in Music

Abstract

In this essay we argue that musical expressiveness is not confined to “emotion characteristics in appearances,” i.e., musical gestures which are experienced as resembling gestures or behaviors characteristic of a person in a particular emotional state, such as vocal expressions of sadness or anger (sighing, wailing, shouting, etc.) and behaviors expressive of joy (skipping lightly), or sadness (moving heavily and slowly as in a funeral procession). We claim that sometimes music can appropriately be heard as containing a “persona,” a fictional or virtual agent whose emotions are expressed in the music, and that this persona can be experienced as expressing more complex emotions, such as hopefulness or resignation, as well as blends of emotion, and emotions that develop and change over time. A complex piece of music may have a composed expressive trajectory or musical “plot,” which dramatizes a psychological journey by a persona. Moreover, listeners may be invited not only to recognize the emotions expressed in such music but also to experience those emotions themselves, either actually or in imagination, by empathizing with the musical persona as he or she travels on a psychological journey through the music. Such experiences are typically reinforced by the arousal of actual physiological states and action tendencies in listeners. We illustrate our argument by means of analyses of the Prelude in E♭ Minor from Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and the third movement of Brahms's Piano Quartet in C Minor, Opus 60. Finally, we admit that not all listeners will approach music in the way we suggest, but we argue that listening in the way we recommend can significantly enrich our musical experiences.