Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T07:51:47.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

MUSICAL EXPRESSION: LESSONS FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2020

BETTINA VARWIG
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article outlines a number of potential contributions that a consideration of early eighteenth-century conceptions of musical expressivity might make to certain present-day philosophical and psychological accounts of musical emotions and their expression. Taking as its central case study a performance by Christian Gerhaher in Peter Sellars's 2014 staging of J. S. Bach's St John Passion, the article calls for closer attention to both the historical specifics of music's expressive capacities and the corporeal dimension of performance (past and present). It argues that a more sustained engagement with these domains can productively complicate some fundamental assumptions that underpin current approaches to musical expression.

Type
Articles
Information
Eighteenth-Century Music , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 53 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Le Rond d'Alembert, Jean, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopaedia of Diderot, trans. Schwab, Richard N., revised edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 46Google Scholar.

2 Juslin, Patrik N., Musical Emotions Explained: Unlocking the Secrets of Musical Affect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Mattheson, Johann, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg: Herold, 1739)Google Scholar, part 2, chapter 13.

4 Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, 227–228. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

5 Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, 210–211.

6 Translation in Marissen, Michael, Bach's Oratorios: The Parallel German-English Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 119Google Scholar.

7 See also Little, Meredith and Jenne, Natalie, Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 276–278Google Scholar.

8 de Brossard, Sébastien, Dictionnaire de Musique (Paris: Ballard, 1703)Google Scholar, no pagination.

9 Johann Sebastian Bach, St John Passion, DVD recording, directed by Peter Sellars (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR140031, 2014). An excerpt of this performance can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7cyHotTtcc (17 June 2019). The full performance is available on the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall website (by subscription) https://www.digitalconcerthall.com. For a critical look at Sellars's recent Passion stagings see Bettina Varwig, ‘Beware the Lamb: Staging Bach's Passions’, twentieth-century music 11/2 (2014), 245–274.

10 Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, 228.

11 Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, 212.

12 Kivy, Peter, The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980)Google Scholar. This is not the place for a comprehensive review of multiple competing perspectives concerning music and/as expression; my working definition is intended to be neither exhaustive nor exclusive. For a useful summary see Andrew Kania, ‘The Philosophy of Music’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/ (17 June 2019).

13 Juslin, Musical Emotions Explained, 138 and 115.

14 Scheibe, Johann Adolf, Der Critische Musikus, second edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1745Google Scholar; reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1970), 46.

15 On turgid invention and artificial counterpoint see Scheibe, Der Critische Musikus, 46–47; on repetitiveness see Johann Mattheson, Critica Musica, two volumes, volume 2 (Hamburg, 1725), 368.

16 For a useful, if slightly dated summary of these different models see Ortony, Andrew and Turner, Terence J., ‘What's Basic About Basic Emotions?’, Psychological Review 97/3 (1990), 315–331CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Prinz, Jesse J., Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 86–88Google Scholar.

17 Juslin, Musical Emotions Explained, 126.

18 Gabrielsson, Alf, ‘Emotional Expression in Music Performance: Between the Performer's Intention and the Listener's Experience’, Psychology of Music 24/1 (1996), 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lahdelma, Imre and Eerola, Tuomas, ‘Single Chords Convey Distinct Emotional Qualities to Both Naïve and Expert Listeners’, Psychology of Music 44/1 (2016), 37–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Juslin, Musical Emotions Explained, 70.

20 Lamont, Alexandra and Eerola, Tuomas, ‘Music and Emotion: Themes and Development’, Musicae Scientiae 15/2 (2011), 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Juslin, Patrik N., Liljeström, Simon and others, ‘Emotional Reactions to Music in a Nationally Representative Sample of Swedish Adults: Prevalence and Causal Influences’, Musicae Scientiae 15/2 (2011), 174–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more in-depth review of recent approaches see Eerola, Tuomas and Vuoskoski, Jonna, ‘A Review of Music and Emotion Studies: Approaches, Emotion Models, and Stimuli’, Music Perception 30/3 (2013), 307–340CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Quinto, Lena, Thompson, William Forde and Taylor, Alan, ‘The Contributions of Compositional Structure and Performance Expression to the Communication of Emotion in Music’, Psychology of Music 42/4 (2014), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Lindström, Erik and others, ‘“Expressivity Comes from within Your Soul”: A Questionnaire Study of Music Students’ Perspectives on Musical Expressivity’, Research Studies in Music Education 20/1 (2003), 23–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Prinz, Jesse, ‘Which Emotions Are Basic?’, in Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, ed. Evans, Dylan and Cruse, Pierre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 69Google Scholar.

25 Scruton, Roger, Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997)Google Scholar, 153. See also Fainsilber, Lynn and Ortony, Andrew, ‘Metaphorical Uses of Language in the Expression of Emotions’, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 2/4 (1987), 239–250CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See, for instance, Johann Heinrich Zedler's definitions of ‘flüchtig’ in his Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, sixty-eight volumes, volume 9 (Halle: Zedler, 1735), 1345.

27 See Scruton, Aesthetics of Music, 143.

28 Cumming, Naomi, ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’, Music Analysis 16/1 (1997), 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Heinichen, Johann David, Der General-Bass in der Composition (Dresden: author, 1728), 83–86Google Scholar.

30 Mattheson, Johann, Das Neu-Eröffnete Orchestre (Hamburg: Schiller, 1713), 237Google Scholar. To be fair, Mattheson himself also voiced some scepticism about this method; see 232.

31 Clayton, Martin and Leante, Laura, ‘Embodiment in Music Performance’, in Experience and Meaning in Music Performance, ed. Clayton, Martin, Dueck, Byron and Leante, Laura (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Spitzer, Michael, Metaphor and Musical Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), especially 93–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Robinson, Jenefer, Deeper than Reason: Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 412CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Barenboim, Daniel, Bach, Johann Sebastian, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Parts I & II (Warner Classics B000I5Y7MY, 2006)Google Scholar.

34 Levinson, Jerrold, Music, Art and Metaphysics: Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 150–151Google Scholar.

35 Cook, Nicholas, Beyond the Score: Music as Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cook's subsequent discussion centres on performance analysis and the production of meaning through performance style. Aspects of bodily gesture, meanwhile, are treated primarily as visual phenomena (especially 289–299).

36 Johann Sebastian Bach, St. John Passion, directed by John Eliot Gardiner (ARCHIV 0289 419 3242 6, 1986).

37 Gould, Glenn, Bach, Johann Sebastian, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, The Glenn Gould Edition (Sony Classics B01MQ22QMB, 1994)Google Scholar. For the commentary (in a review of Edwin Fischer's recording of the set) see ‘The Gramophone Choice’, Gramophone http://www.gramophone.co.uk/editorial/bachs-well-tempered-clavier (17 June 2019).

38 Butt, John, ‘Emotion in the German Lutheran Baroque and the Development of Subjective Time Consciousness’, Music Analysis 29/1–3 (2010), 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Le Guin, Elisabeth, Boccherini's Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 9Google Scholar.

40 My thanks to Werner Breig for drawing my attention to this piece.

41 Butt, John, Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 79–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See, for example, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's advice in his Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (Berlin: Henning, 1753), 122: ‘Indem ein Musickus nicht anders rühren kan, er sey dann selbst gerührt’ (A musician cannot move others unless he is also moved himself). But see Susanne Langer's classic rejection of this model in Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, third edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 211–224.

43 Elin Diamond and Elizabeth Bronfen, review of Carolyn Abbate, In Search of Opera, Cambridge Opera Journal 17/2 (2005), 215.

44 Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel, The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to Studying Recorded Musical Performances (London: CHARM, 2009)Google Scholar, chapter 2.1, paragraph 20, http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/studies/chapters/chap2.html (17 June 2019).

45 See Parker, Roger, ‘Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo(s): “Live” on DVD’, The Opera Quarterly 26/4 (2010), 603–613CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a thoughtful exploration of the issues surrounding ‘live on DVD’ recordings.

46 Peters, Deniz, ‘Introduction’, in Bodily Expression in Electronic Music, ed. Peters, Deniz, Eckel, Gerhard and Dorschel, Andreas (New York: Routledge, 2012), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘Essay on the Origin of Languages’, in Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality and Religion, ed. Kelly, Christopher (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2007), 139–140Google Scholar.

48 Juslin, Musical Emotions Explained, 140.

49 Head, Matthew, ‘The Growing Pains of Eighteenth-Century Studies’, Cambridge Opera Journal 27/2 (2015), 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 For a classic formulation of the contour theory see Kivy, Peter, Sound Sentiment: An Essay on the Musical Emotions (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

51 Giulio Caccini, Le Nuove Musiche (Florence: Marescotti, 1602), ‘Ai Lettori’.

52 Quoted in Wilbourne, Emily, Seventeenth-Century Opera and the Sound of the Commedia dell'Arte (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Translation adapted from there.

53 Praetorius, Michael, Syntagma Musicum, three volumes, volume 3 (Wolfenbüttel: Holwein, 1619), 230Google Scholar.

54 Tosi, Pier Francesco, Anleitung zur Singkunst, ed. and trans. Agricola, Johann Friedrich (Berlin: Winter, 1757Google Scholar; facsimile edition, Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1994), 139.

55 Rameau, Jean-Philippe, Treatise on Harmony, trans. Gossett, Philip (New York: Dover, 1971), 155Google Scholar.

56 Cumming, ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’, 8.

57 Cumming, ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’, 9–10, 22.

58 See Nicholas Cook's comments on scores as scripts that ‘choreograph a series of real-time, social interactions between players’. Nicholas Cook, ‘Music as Performance’, in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, ed. Martin Clayton (New York: Routledge, 2003), 206.

59 Quantz, Johann Joachim, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin: Voß, 1752), 51Google Scholar. Translation adapted from Quantz, Johann Joachim, On Playing the Flute, trans. Reilly, Edward R. (London: Faber, 2001), 59Google Scholar.

60 Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung, 61. Translation adapted from Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 79.

61 Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung, 106. Translation in Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 203.

62 Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung, 4. Translation adapted from Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 13.

63 Rupert Christiansen declared Sellars's staging of Bach's St Matthew Passion a ‘tasteless spectacle best appreciated with eyes closed’. See his review in The Daily Telegraph (7 September 2014) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/11079980/BBC-Prom-66-St-Matthew-Passion-review-verging-on-ludicrous.html (17 June 2019).

64 McClary, Susan, ‘Introduction: On Bodies, Affects and Cultural Identities in the Seventeenth Century’, in Structures of Feeling in Seventeenth-Century Cultural Expression, ed. McClary, Susan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 3–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of course, this ‘simulation’ was equally governed by detailed sets of rules concerning postures, gestures and facial expressions in stage acting. See Termini, Olga, ‘The Role of Diction and Gesture in Italian Baroque Opera’, Performance Practice Review 6/2 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Article 7 https://scholarship.claremont.edu/ppr/vol6/iss2/7.

65 de’ Cavalieri, Emilio, Rappresentatione di Anima, e di Corpo (Rome: Mutij, 1600)Google Scholar, ‘A’ Lettori’, fol. 2r, trans. Carol MacClintock in Readings in the History of Music in Performance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 183.

66 Wreden, Otto Just, Kurzer u. deutlicher Unterricht von denen Theilen des Menschlichen Körpers (Hannover: Förster, 1737), 263Google Scholar.

67 Meyer, Joachim, Der anmaßliche Hamburgische Criticus Sine Crisi (Lemgo, 1728), 122Google Scholar.

68 Kivy, Peter, Antithetical Arts: On the Ancient Quarrel Between Literature and Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 218CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Kivy, Antithetical Arts, 231.

70 Kivy, Peter, Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 162Google Scholar.

71 Scheibe, Der Critische Musikus, 85.

72 Hirschmann, Wolfgang, ‘“Nachdruck” und “edle Simplizität” in Telemanns Kirchenmusik’, in Telemann und die Kirchenmusik, ed. Lange, Carsten and Reipsch, Brit (Hildesheim: Olms, 2011), 34Google Scholar. In Hirschmann's analysis, these features add up to a compelling example of ‘edle Einfalt’ (noble simplicity), that guiding aesthetic category of eighteenth-century Empfindsamkeit invoked by Mattheson and later Johann Georg Sulzer, in which art reached its greatest emotional potential through a self-conscious artlessness.

73 Cumming, following Manfred Clynes, identifies this as an archetypal ‘grief’ gesture: ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’, 22.

74 Hirschmann, ‘“Nachdruck” und “edle Simplizität” in Telemanns Kirchenmusik’, 37. On this process of ‘Verinnerlichung’ see Laurenz Lütteken, Das Monologische als Denkform in der Musik zwischen 1760 und 1785 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998), 29–33.

75 Georg Philipp Telemann, Johannes-Passion, ed. Felix Schroeder (Zurich: Eulenburg, 1976). According to Hirschmann, the same instruction accompanies one further aria in the work, ‘Es bleibet dabei’ (No. 49); see Hirschmann, ‘“Nachdruck” und “edle Simplizität” in Telemanns Kirchenmusik’, 32.

76 Heinichen, Der General-Bass, 60.

77 Austern, Linda Phyllis, ‘Introduction’, in Music, Sensation and Sensuality, ed. Austern, Linda Phyllis (New York: Routledge, 2002), 6Google Scholar.

78 Le Guin, Boccherini's Body, 36.