Hearing in the Sixth Sense

Abstract

In the middle of the sixteenth century a new type of theory emerged that reflected a fundamental shift in the way music might be written and heard. Gioseffo Zarlino and Nicola Vicentino published within three years of one another treatises that assign affective qualities to melodic and harmonic intervals and that assert that the composer should use intervals to match the affective content of the text being set to music.1 Although their exact descriptions of affective quality differ in some details, both theorists establish dualisms that pit major against minor intervals. In general, say these theorists, major intervals should be used to express happiness, hardness, harshness, cruelty, and so forth, while minor intervals should be used to express sadness, softness, gentleness, or sweetness. In the present venue I will compare Vicentino's and Zarlino's comments on interval affect, examine both musical and extramusical factors that contributed to the emergence and subsequent shape of such theories, and discuss the type of listener and listening these theories suggest. Vicentino assigned affects to each melodic interval from the minor second through the perfect fifth, including several variants resulting from the microtonal tuning of his theory of genera. The direction of a melodic interval may contribute to its affect; for example, the intervals larger than the fifth are lumped together and labeled (incitato) in ascent and (molle) in descent.2 Vicentino is less specific about the harmonic intervals in general. He focuses on the imperfect consonances: the major third is lively and cheerful (vivace et allegra); the minor third is very weak and (molto debole et ha del mesto) and will serve well for words because it is rather static; the minor sixth is somewhat sonorous and sad (alquanto sonora, et ha del mesto); while the major sixth acts more like a dissonance than a consonance, and when it moves to the perfect fifth, it is good for harshness (asprezza).3 Vicentino describes a three-step process for good composition: determine the affect of the words to be set and apply the appropriate melodic intervals, match the tenseness or slackness of the melodic intervals with tense or slack harmonic intervals, and add an appropriate rate of motion. Of the three, the harmonic intervals are the most important because the ear feeds on consonance.4 He summarizes his views on the relationship between text and tone as follows: