“Be that as it may, when an issue is controversial, one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one has arrived at any opinion one has. One can only give one’s audience the opportunity to come to their own conclusions while observing the limitations, biases, and idiosyncrasies of the speaker.”

(Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”)

A study published recently in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences assured us that music can evoke thirteen emotions in its listeners: fun, joy, eroticism, beauty, relaxation, sadness, dreaminess, triumph, anxiety, fear, annoyance, challenge and excitement.

Throughout history there have been many attempts of this kind to catalogue the emotions that music can transmit.

Among the classical Greeks, music was considered to be an almost direct vehicle for the transmission of human emotions, and it was even codified which scales and which instruments corresponded to each type of emotion, and how they affected human behaviour. In fact, this is one of the fundamental components of Greek musical theory that has survived to this day, and is described in detail in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, among many others.

During the Middle Ages, incidently a period deeply influenced by Platonic ideas, there was no such link between the performance of music and its effects on the human psyche, at least with regard to music written by the intellectual elite. Practical music was considered to occupy an unworthy place, typical of beasts, and could only achieve importance on a more theoretical level, to the extent that it translated the universal proportions created by God. According to Neo-Pythagorean theories, the proportions of musical intervals correspond to a divine order present in all creation. This is the so-called ‘harmony of the spheres’, which in itself deeply moves us, but which effectively denies practical music (that which we play and listen to) any type of capacity to move our fellow human beings.

It is necessary to introduce a parenthesis here to refer that this type of notions has reached us through the theorists by whom we have written documents, that is, from members of the clergy, practically the only social class that was in full command of writing in mediaeval times. But it is an evidence that would not even need to be documented (and yet it is!) that many other types of music existed at the time, and that they simply have not reached us in written form because the majority of the population did not even know how to read or write.

This is the reason why we practically only have music notation of religious music throughout the thousand years of the Middle Ages, and this is also why the musical and aesthetic theories that we can access today belong to this context. Of course, the few examples of troubadour written music that have come down to us with musical notation (a tiny minority) bear witness to the fact that our mediaeval ancestors did not dispense with emotion in their musical manifestations…

During the so-called Renaissance and Baroque periods, the awareness that emotion is an inalienable component of the musical phenomenon is no longer questioned, despite not being considered, as in other later periods, that the objective of music, and art in general, is expressing the emotions of its author. The musician expresses emotions, yes, but not his own, which did not matter to his audience, but rather those that reflected the libretto of his opera or the content of a religious text. Even in instrumental music, they were emotions external to the person of the composer or performer, emotions that were somehow collective, derived from social convention, which habit or good customs assigned to each context of musical presentation. It seems significant to me that this dimension of the musical phenomenon is theorized in the ‘Theory of Affects’, not in a ‘theory of emotions’. The distinction between the two concepts is very clear: emotion is something intimate and individual, whilst affect is something that we feel towards others.

Just as Descartes codified the passions of the soul in his famous treatise, so too did Baroque musical theorists codify musical emotions (or affects) in their treatises and the appropriate techniques to translate them (although not all agreed on which musical feature translated which emotion, but that goes beyond our topic…) This strongly coded rhetoric translated in a highly symbolic and conventional manner the emotions it intended to express, so only those who knew the code could fully comprehend the intended expression. In fact, when we listen to the music of composers like Bach or Handel, most times we do not feel in an obvious way human emotions of joy, sadness, anger or arrogance, but rather emotions at a more intimate and complex level, very difficult to translate.

Starting with Classicism (mid-18th century), and throughout this era and the Romantic period (19th century), composers indeed sought to express their personal emotions in a more direct way, and to do so they used a much clearer language, with elements from popular music (easy melodies, accompanying figures, etc.), abandoning the contrapuntal complexity and elitist rhetorical conventions of the Baroque era, precisely with the objective of moving the listener, translating the passions and concerns of their souls as clearly as possible. It is imperative to note that the audience for classical and Romantic composers was markedly different from that of Baroque composers. The ascent of the bourgeoisie, so vividly reflected in the French Revolution, resulted in a substantial transformation in the composer-listener relationship: the new audiences, possessing ample wealth but not necessarily extensive culture, demanded music that entertained and moved them, as their relatively limited education would not permit them to comprehend the nuances and complexities of Baroque art, with its constant allusions to classical mythology and the rhetoric of Cicero.

Concerning the 20th century, it is not straightforward to make such broad generalisations. It was an era of extremes and contrasts, encompassing ultra-romantics and cosmopolitan cynics, minimalists and structuralists, improvisers and interpreters of other composers’ music… However, there exists one fact that appears to me to be of utmost relevance: a substantial democratisation of access to art and culture. Such a situation can yield the greatest benefits, yet also the most concerning dangers.

It can be positive if it ensures the great creations of humanity are accessible to the majority, the heritage of each community is affirmed as an identity factor, and favourable conditions to music creation are established. However, what we unfortunately witness most frequently is that to address the lack of widespread education and erudition, the preferred solution is the massification, commercialisation and simplification of artistic production. Not infrequently the Academy contributes to this situation, creating university contexts in which the only thing that matters is the impact on the social fabric, where the comics in the Sunday newspaper and the sonnets of Shakespeare, or the silly songs of the radio and the symphonies of Haydn are considered equally relevant.…

We risk transforming art into a product for commercial consumption rather than a vehicle and refuge for our emotions. The problem becomes even more serious as fine arts and truly independent artists find it increasingly challenging to adapt to this economic environment, and the signals and indications we receive should generate alarm regarding their prospects for survival.

However, I may be evading the central issue: music’s capacity to express emotion.

Why do we associate musical ideas with emotions? Why does the percussion of a metal string or the friction of a gut string with a horse’s hair touch us in the depths of our hearts and in the most intimate corners of our souls? It appears more evident to link emotions to words, and we accomplish this superbly: Cervantes, Camões, Shakespeare, Dostoievsky… are some of many extraordinary examples.

However, there are certain forms of emotion, feeling and sensation that evade the complexities of spoken and written language, and even resist being confined within our intellectual frameworks, that is, we cannot even conceive of them. There are moments of pure spontaneity that are challenging to describe in literature: the sensation of taking the first sip of water when we are thirsty, the softness of the sound of the sea before we realise we are listening to it, the tenderness of a newborn kitten, the aroma of orange blossoms… I refer to those fleeting moments that are immune to our intellectual or aesthetic contemplation. Words may attempt to evoke such sensations, but they fail to embody them. Nor can music describe those profound moments of spontaneity and communion with the essence of being alive, that was not my intended direction: the cliché that music translates the untranslatable is too unsatisfactory… but in this domain music has an advantage over the literary text: it is also a sensation, its intellectual component should only matter to its creator: it does not interfere with the listener’s enjoyment. It appears to be another example of humanity behaving as a sorcerer’s apprentice, playing at being the divine creator, generating ‘artificial’ primordial sensations akin to those mentioned previously.

When contemplating the immensity of the universe, we are intimidated by its ever-expanding eternal beauty, the complexity and mystery of its material potential and impressive mathematical solidity, and the feeling of belonging to a whole, despite our inability to fully explain it. I observe this trilogy of factors in the same manner within the great artistic creations of humanity (not solely in music, but across all the arts, it must be said, despite music’s extreme abstraction bringing it closer to natural phenomena than, for instance, painting or literature). And the awareness of these three factors, which we can ultimately summarise as beauty, intelligence and spirituality, enables us to discern truly great music from mere commercial products, akin to fast food or sentimental television soap operas. Music that upholds an inviolable devotion to beauty, music that awes us with the craftsmanship of its composer and the virtuosity of its performer, and finally, music that leaves us with the feeling that we comprehend something because of it, that there is a meaning for things and that we are part of that universal meaning. This is the great music that moves us and that Hildegard von Bingen, the Gregorian masters, Orlando di Lassus, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Claude Debussy, Béla Bartók, and also the masters of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian maqam, the mystics of Hindu raga, the serenity of Japanese honkyoku, the virtuosi of Indonesian gamelan and the greats of jazz have created. It is music that communicates effectively with us and evokes the noblest and deepest emotions that pertain to those cosmic factors of universality that transcend chronological or geographical boundaries: beauty, intelligence and spirituality. It is true that at times the spontaneity of a folk song stirs us, a commercial song on the radio affects us, a dance rhythm captivates us, or the technical prowess of a rock guitarist awes us. However, they are partial situations where, fleetingly, a hint of deeper musical emotions is manifested: identity factors to which we are sensitive, instinctive physical emotion, or genuine admiration for technical skill. Yet, they are not the fullness of that deepest musical emotion as they lack the complete integration of that perfect trinity of dimensions: eternal beauty, profound intelligence, redemptive spirituality.

I have thus far discussed emotion in music and how it is conveyed or received. However, there is a preceding question: in what manner is emotion present in the creative act? How does it shape it? I admit that on this matter I have more doubts and perplexities than certainties and opinions.

I believe there are two crucial aspects in this equation: on one hand, the emotions one genuinely experiences or feels (and the urge to convey them); on the other, the technical ability to translate them through music.

How does one accomplish this? Occasionally, a notion is conveyed, in films or social media, that technique and rigorous training have, in some manner, a castrating effect on artistic creation and its emotional aspect. A form of spontaneity that an artist aspires to is mistaken for the pleasant ignorance that prevents us from even recognising what we simply do not know. I encounter enthusiastic comments about renowned quotes that suggest one must disregard technique or rules in order to compose, and from there one proceeds to question all technical training or the essential endless hours of individual work. Technique can be circumvented and overcome, but only after it has been mastered and assimilated, as technique is also memory and identity, and without them there is no emotion, let alone its transmission. It is crucial to demystify the cliché of improvised or spontaneous and emotional music versus written, rigid and more intellectual music. It doesn’t work that way: both improvised and written music, in order to transmit emotions to a receptive and cultivated audience, require that the instrumental or compositional technique does not constitute an obstacle to what we want to share. Technical limitations do not permit us to express our emotions, only our limitations… On the contrary, it is the complete technical mastery that liberates us and permits us to express, I know not whether it is our emotions, but at least the musical impulses that our intuition whispers to us. This technical mastery is the indispensable support of natural talent, the assurance of the fecundity of the outbursts of inspiration. It is of significance both to the creator of the music – the composer – and to the performer – the instrumentalist or singer. In fact, the musical rhetoric of baroque theorists clearly distinguished these two functions so that emotions could be transmitted in the musical act: the composer had to know how to use the technical compositional resources appropriate to the type of emotion he wanted to convey; it was up to the interpreter to master the technical and rhetorical devices that could better enhance his speech (dynamics, ornamentation, etc.) to reach the listener in the best conditions. It must be noted that the possibility the mysterious formula of emotion through music may take place also presumes the listener is not only available, but also aware of the artistic and cultural codes that allow this sharing of emotions. We designate certain musical cultures as erudite, for they presume erudition on the part of those who compose, those who interpret and those who listen, and that appears to me to be a fundamental aspect of this equation: the balance between these three dimensions.

Speaking as a composer – with regard to the type of spontaneous emotion I aim to evoke – I cannot contemplate it whilst I compose, and the result never fails to surprise me. When I write, there is only sound in my mind. Schubert stated that “what I produce comes from my understanding of music and from my sorrow; those which are born of sorrow alone seem least to bring joy to the world.” 

I consider this an insightful phrase, and I believe he wished to convey that his suffering (or emotions, if translated thusly) is irremediably present: conveying it is not the product of a deliberate choice. And the knowledge of music, that he refers to, his almost unlimited instrumental and compositional abilities, is the best assurance that it is always present and manifests itself (each time in different ways) with that spontaneity that never ceases to amaze and surprise us.

I also believe that yes, music can evoke the human emotions I mentioned at the outset, published in the American journal, and one can occasionally force the character of a musical fragment in that direction, but very often it is at the level of caricature. In fact, it is unsurprising that the majority of music employed in the aforementioned American study were songs. The presence or absence of lyrics is not inconsequential, and naturally the literary content influences the human emotions we may experience.

However, I must confess that it is not those quotidian emotions that I feel most profoundly in the music of the great masters, nor those that I aspire to convey through my own compositions. I firmly believe that there exists a purely musical emotion, which does not translate everyday behaviours or emotions of human beings, but is instead a discreet reflection of a natural and universal order that moves us every time the sun majestically sets or the moon smiles at us.

César Viana