Essays on the Origins of Western Music s5

Essays on the Origins of Western Music

David Whitwell

Essay Nr. 152: On Emotion in Music in the German Baroque

All musical expression has an emotion for its foundation.1 F. W. Marpurg, 1749

In the Renaissance the most frequently given purpose for music was to “soothe” the listener’s feelings. During the Baroque, as we approach the modern concept of a concert, this purpose is transformed into something with a more Aristotelian ring to it, more like the description of a catharsis, “to refresh the spirit.” Georg Muffat, in the Foreword to his Auserlesene Instrumental-Music (1701) explains that in his previous collections he has sought to draw “liveliness and grace” from the “Lullian well.” But, in the present collection he now presents “certain profound and unusual affects of the Italian manner, various capricious and artful conceits, and alternations of many sorts, interspersed with special diligence between the [ripieno] and [concertino].” The purpose of this music, as he makes very clear, is to listen to, it is concert music. It is also important to notice the variety of situations which he equates with “concert music,” considering how limited a definition we acknowledge today (concert hall, lights off, white tie, programs, etc.). These concerti, suited neither to the church (because of the ballet airs and airs of other sorts which they include) nor for dancing (because of other

1 F. W. Marpurg, Der critische Musicus an der Spree (Berlin), September 2, 1749.

1 interwoven conceits, now slow and serious, now gay and nimble, and composed only for the express refreshment of the ear), may be performed most appropriately in connection with entertainments given by great princes and lords, for receptions of distinguished guests, and at state banquets, serenades, and assemblies of musical amateurs and virtuosi.2

In the title pages of Bach’s Clavier Ubung, Part III, and the “Goldberg Variations,” he gives the purpose to “refresh the spirits.” Similarly, when he was looking at a position in Halle, he was sent a contract which specified that the church music should have the result that “the members of the Congregation shall be the more inspired and refreshed in worship....”3 The most important purpose of music is to communicate feelings, a purpose to which Johann Scheibe paid tribute in 1739. Music which does not penetrate the heart nor the soul Does indeed consist of tones yet only is compelling to the ears, Which nature and art have not given sound, grace, strength, Is quite dead, and lacks spirit and vitality.4

A more typical expression of this purpose during the Baroque is given by Georg Muffat, in his Florilegia (1695). He writes that he has given each suite the name of “some state of the affections which I have experienced,” namely, Piety, The Joys of the Hopeful, Gratitude, Impatience, Solicitude, Flatteries, and Constancy. To understand what Muffat means by this, we must pause to consider the influence on Baroque composers of what Bukofzer names “the principle of the doctrine of affections and figures.”5 Nearly every writer on Baroque music mentions this “doctrine,” but we believe it is incorrect to suggest this was something composers thought about before or while composing. The “doctrine” was really the creation of theorists, not composers, and the epitome of it lies in the difficulty we all

2 Quoted in Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York: Norton, 1950), 449. 3 Quoted in Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, The Bach Reader (New York: Norton, 1966), 65. J. F. Reichardt reports an occasion when Bach needed to refresh his own spirits. He had entered a room where a harpsichordist was performing. Upon seeing Bach, the performer suddenly stopped, leaving a dissonant chord hanging in the air. Bach, who heard it, was so offended by this musical unpleasantness that he passed right by his host...rushed to the harpsichord, resolved the dissonant chord, and made an appropriate cadence. Only then did he approach his host and make him his bow of greeting. [Ibid., 291] 4 Poem in honor of the publication of Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), trans., Ernest Harriss (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), 74. 5 Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New York: Norton, 1947), 5.

2 experience in trying to talk about emotions, or to employ the left hemisphere of the brain to describe something it knows nothing about. And it is this central irony, using intellectual concepts to explain feeling, which makes this “doctrine” impossible, then or now, as a practical technique of composition. Baroque theorists, who had essentially the same experiences as we, although they knew nothing of modern brain research, inherited a frame of reference which included a scholastic tradition thousands of years old beginning with the ancient writer’s endless theoretical contemplation about the emotions of the soul and continuing in the medieval Scholastic concentration on “speculative music.” Thus, after composers began to reestablish the primary purpose of the expression of feelings in their music, by the late Baroque some theorists felt compelled to explain, in the context of this long history of philosophy, and emboldened by the spirit of the oncoming Enlightenment, what they were hearing and to attempt to conceptualize it. The theorists who began to write treatises on this subject were mostly German and mostly very minor figures. Paul Henry Lang finds “Manuals containing musical “figures” which corresponded to certain affections began to appear with Mauritius Vogt’s Conclave Thesauri Magnae Artis Musicae (Prague, 1711).6 Bukofzer provides a more extensive list,7 but some of the treatises he cites, such as Praetorius, only discuss feelings in music but do not construct a “doctrine,” and others, such as Heinichen, are more than skeptical of the idea to begin with. For the most part, these attempts to create a “doctrine” are attempts to correlate musical composition, in particular melodies, with the academic terms used in the teaching of rhetoric and oratory. In the material by Mattheson the reader will find an adequate sampling of a typical effort to do this. The musical examples which

6 Paul Henry Lang, “Musical Thought of the Baroque: The Doctrine of Temperaments and Affections,” in William Hays, ed., Twentieth-Century Views of Music History (New York: Scribner’s, 1972), 201. 7 Manfred Bukofzer, “Allegory in Baroque Music,” in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , 1939-1940 (Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1965), III, 5, cites S. Calvisius, Exercitationes duae, 1600; J. Nucius, Musices poeticae, 1613; M. Praetorius, Syntagma musicum III, 1619; J. Cruger, Synopsis musica, 1624; Volupius Decorus, Architectonice musices universalis, 1631; Chr. Bernard, Tractatus compositionis augmentatus, c. 1650; J. C. Printz, Phrynidis Mytilinaei, I, 1696; Chr. Caldenbach, Dissertatio musica, 1664; D. Speer, Grundrichtiger...musikaliches Kleeblatt, 1697; J. Heinichen, Anweisung zum Generalbass, 1711; M. Vogt, Conclave thesauris magnae artis musicae, 1719; J. Mattheson, Critica Musica, 1725; J. Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, 1739 and J. Scheibe, Critischer Musicus, 1743.

3 Mattheson provides, however, are really nothing more than what we would call “text-painting” today, and this was certainly not a new idea to the 17th or 18th century. Neither, of course, was the expression of emotions a new idea. Indeed, Emilio de’ Cavalieri had already written in 1600 that the purpose of his Rappresentazione di Anima, et di Corpo was to “move the listener to different emotions, as pity, joy, tears, and laughter, and other similar emotions....” Since late Renaissance music clearly had both emotion and text-painting, do we really have much left to dignify with the name, “doctrine?” Can we really imagine that the composers of the Baroque followed the instructions of the theorists? And in the theater, where this idea was supposed to be centered, one not only had extra-musical considerations, but as Heinichen observes the composer might compose emotions not intended by the poet at all. I would never suggest to anyone to fill up the theatrical style with too many serious inventions.... For pathetic, melancholic, and phlegmatic music (in so far as it is based on tenderness and good taste) is effective in the church and chamber styles; but it is not well suited to the theatrical style, and one uses serious pieces simply for judicious [variety]. And if their lordships, the poets, overload us with pathetic and sorrowful arias, we [the composers] must try to sweeten these either with mixed inventions or effective accompaniments; or in those arias containing a double affection, one turns the invention more gradually to the lively element rather than the serious one. Thus, for example, with the melancholy of love, one should rather express the pleasantness of love and not the blackness of melancholy.... In summary, the theatrical style for the most part requires something moving or adroit, though I should not call it simply merry. For merry music in itself can easily degenerate into barbarism and is unpleasant to sensitive ears.8

Heinichen also questions whether there can be any meaningful association between emotions and tonality. This relationship, one of the most fundamental questions in early philosophy, had long been assumed to be the key to how emotions affect the listener. The long history of this idea in literature left Heinichen somewhat ambivalent. He appears to want to believe that keys have certain emotional qualities, but he immediately casts doubt on the general idea by pointing out that the real emotional meaning is found in the actual music the composer writes. 8 Johann David Heinichen, General-Bass Treatise [1711], quoted in George Buelow, Thorough-Bass Accompaniment according to Johann David Heinichen (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986, 282.

4 The aria begins in Eb; for this reason, however, the invention need not be sad, serious, or plaintive, for brilliant concerti as well as joyous arias in certain cases can be composed with the greatest effect in this beautiful key. Furthermore, the previous examples...clearly show that one can express the same words and affections in various and, according to the old theory, opposing keys. For that reason, what previous theorists have written and rewritten about the properties of the modes are nothing but trifles, as if one mode could be merry, another sad, a third pious, heroic, war-like, etc.

He continues by noting that even if this were true, it would be rendered void by the conflicting tuning systems and lack of agreement on a standardized pitch. Following this, he concludes, In my opinion, the ancient theorists erred in their research of modal characteristics, in the same way as we continue to err today in judging a musical work. If we, for example, find for this or that key...one or more beautifully tender, plaintive, or serious arias, we prefer to attribute the fine impression of the aria to the key itself and not to the excellent ideas of the composer; and we immediately establish a proprietas modi, as if contrary words and affections could not be expressed in this key. This, however, is worse than wrong, as can be proved to the contrary by a thousand beautiful examples. In general, one can say that one key is more suitable than another for expressing affections. Thus in the practice today using well-tempered scales, the keys indicated with two and three sharps or flats are particularly beautiful and expressive in the theatrical style.... Yet, to specify this or that key especially for the affection of love, sadness, joy, etc., is not good. Should someone object at this point and say that D, A, Bb major are much more suited to raging music than the calmer scales of A minor, E minor, and similar ones, then this actually does not prove the proprietas modorum even if it were so, but it depends on the inclination of the composer. For we have heard famous composers write the saddest and tenderest music in D, A, and Bb major, etc., whereas in A minor, E minor, C minor; and in similar scales we have heard the most powerful and brilliant music.9

All things considered, we think there is a danger in making more out of “the doctrine of affections” than was ever recognized by the actual composers, that is, more meets the eye than ever met the ear of the Baroque listener. Certainly we recognize that it is the glory of the Baroque that the true purpose of music, expressing feeling, had conquered the old Scholastic understanding of music as a branch of mathematics. Therefore we may suppose people were talking more about emotions in music than ever before. But just because people were discussing

9 Ibid., 283.

5 emotions, it does not necessarily follow that there was a universally understood “doctrine.” Therefore, we believe that some 16th century composers would be surprised to be excluded, if we say, as does Palisca, If we want to ascertain whether we have crossed the boundary into the baroque or out of it, there is no better test than to ask whether the expression of the affections is the dominant goal in fashioning a piece of music.10

Bukofzer’s discussion on “Allegory in Baroque Music” is again primarily a discussion of text-painting. However, he clearly maintains a different purpose for the Baroque composer, almost as if his emotions were not as sincere as those of the composer of the Classic Period. We can only suppose he were thinking primarily of Baroque church music in arriving at such a conclusion. Further, his conception of the “rigidity of baroque music, especially from the rhythmic point of view,” an idea which surely no one today believes any longer, is a conclusion which can only be reached if one only looks at the Baroque music as it appears to the eye and overlooks the entire aspect of improvisation which was so fundamental to it. The counterblast to baroque music took precisely the form of the discovery how to express feelings without the intervention of the intellect. Music no longer meant this or that emotion; it was itself the immediate expression of that emotion. This transition from the notion “it means” to that of “it is” marks the transition from the baroque style to its successor, the classical-romantic style.... Baroque music is not, like modern music, a language of feeling, which expresses its objects directly, but a sort of indirect iconology of sound. For this reason it lacks all psychology in the modern sense. The rigidity of baroque music, especially from the rhythmic point of view, has long since been remarked upon. But this is not a weakness of such music; on the contrary, it is its very strength. The humanization of music by means of a dynamic emotional conception of its nature appears only during the first half of the eighteenth century....11

Surely no one today would so describe Baroque music. If “baroque music is not...a language of feeling,” then what was Corelli doing in performance when he, suffered his passions to hurry him away so much..., whose eyes will sometimes turn as red as fire; his countenance will be distorted, his eyeballs

10 Claude Palisca, Baroque Music (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1981), 5. 11 Manfred Bukofzer, “Allegory in Baroque Music,” Op. cit., III, 20ff.

6 roll as in an agony, and he gives in so much to what he is doing that he doth not look like the same man.12

Bukofzer was closer to the truth in his later book when he concluded, Since [the doctrine of figures] did not “express” but merely “presented” or “signified” the affections, musically identical figures lent themselves to numerous and often highly divergent meanings. It is therefore misleading to isolate certain figures and classify them in a system of absolute meanings as joy, steps, beatitude, and so forth.13

We believe the conclusion by Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel more accurately describes not only Bach, but all serious Baroque composers. Attempts have been made to describe [the doctrine of the affections] as a kind of formula technique: a set of symbolic patterns to which Bach would recur whenever the textual situation required. But to ascribe to Bach a predominantly intellectual routine of this sort is to overestimate the importance of certain elements apparent in his music. He was neither so poorly endowed with imagination that he had to establish for himself a whole reservoir of ready-made patterns, to draw on whenever inspiration failed, nor so theoretically minded that he would heed the pedantic attempts of his contemporaries to establish music as a branch of rhetoric.14

The most accurate testimonial of the view of the Baroque composer may be the one inadvertently expressed in 1711 by Heinichen. He means to complain that no theorist has really written the definitive work on the “doctrine of affections.” But he was describing musicians at large, including composers, when he admits that no one is interested in this topic. For this is how it has nearly always been: composers compose and the theorists come along later, and not before. What a bottomless ocean we still have before us merely in the expression of words and the affections in music. And how delighted is the ear, if we perceive in a refined church composition or other music how a skilled virtuoso has attempted here and there to move the feelings of an audience through his galanterie and other devices that express the text, and in this way to find successfully the true purpose of music. Nevertheless, no one wants to search deeper into this beautiful musical Rhetorica and to invent good rules. What could one not write about musical taste, invention, accompaniment, and their nature, differences, and effects? But no one wants

12 O. Strunk, “Francois Raguenet, Comparison between the French and Italian Music (1702),” in The Musical Quarterly XXXII (1946), 419fn. 13 Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era, Op. cit., 389. 14 Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, Op. cit., 34.

7 to investigate the matters aiming at this lofty practice or to give even the slightest introduction to it.15

In the end, no matter what emotions the composer was feeling and attempting to notate, a great responsibility remains to the performer if these emotions are to be perceived by the listener. A student of Bach relates that the latter had this foremost in mind even in the performance of the most simple music. As concerns the playing of chorales, I was instructed by my teacher Kapellmeister Bach, who is still living, not to play the songs merely offhand but according to the sense [Affect] of the words.16

Heinichen concurs that the notes are not sufficient for this purpose. It is impossible to find the tenderness of the soul of music with mere numeric changes of dead notes....17

The German writer, Christoph Bernhard (1627-1692), in a treatise on singing, expresses his concern that gesture correspond with feeling. The question may here be raised, whether a singer’s face and bearing should reflect the affects found in the text. Thus let it be known that a singer should sing modestly, without special facial expressions; for nothing is more upsetting than certain singers who are better heard than seen, who arouse the expectations of a listener with a good voice and style of singing, but who ruin everything with ugly faces and gestures.18

On the other hand, Bernhard’s description, in 1649, of the singer’s range of emotion in the Florentine style is rather remarkable. In the recitative style, one should take care that the voice is raised in moments of anger, and to the contrary dropped in moments of grief. Pain makes it pause; impatience hastens it. Happiness enlivens it. Desire emboldens it. Love renders it alert. Bashfulness holds it back. Hope strengthens it. Despair diminishes it. Fear keeps it down. Danger is fled with screams. If, however, a person faces up to danger, then his voice must reflect his daring and bravery.19

15 Johann David Heinichen, Op. cit., 326. In a footnote, Heinichen observes that some attempts at expressing emotions in music sound mannered and make people laugh. Thus, he says, “a mighty chasm stretches between knowledge and ability.” 16 Johann Ziegler (1746), quoted in Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, Op. cit., 237. 17 Johann David Heinichen, Op. cit., 330. 18 Quoted in Ellen Harris, “Voices,” in Performance Practice: Music after 1600 (New York: Norton, 1989), 100. 19 Quoted in Ibid., 110.

8 Marpurg confirms a wide variety of emotions in performance and provides an interesting discussion of the integrity of the performer. All musical expression has an affect or emotion for its foundation. A philosopher when expounding or demonstrating will try to enlighten our understanding, to bring it lucidity and order. The orator, the poet, the musician attempt rather to inflame than to enlighten. The philosopher deals in combustible matter capable of glowing or yielding a temperate and moderate warmth. But in music there is only the distilled essence of this matter, the most refined part of it, which throws out thousands of the most beautiful flames, always with rapidity, sometimes with violence. The musician has therefore a thousand parts to play, a thousand characters to assume at the composer’s bidding. To what extraordinary undertakings our passions carry us! He who has the good fortune at all to experience the inspiration which lends greatness to poets, orators, artists, will be aware how vehemently and diversely our soul responds when it is given over to the emotions. Thus to interpret rightly every composition which is put in front of him a musician needs the utmost sensibility and the most felicitous powers of intuition.20

Finally, from Forkel we have the interesting insight that even the instrument was a consideration for Bach in this regard. Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord, which, though susceptible of great variety of tone, seemed to him lacking in soul....21

The most dramatic concept of the expression of emotions through music is what is generally known as “ethos,” the ability of music to change the character of the listener. The 16th century nobles, especially in Italy, felt that after a dinner party, during which there was much debating and arguing, it was important to conclude the evening by singing in order to bring everyone into “harmony.” We find it somewhat charming, therefore, that Johann Kuhnau makes a similar argument when discussing the virtues of the collegium musicum. The musicians in cities commonly hold a collegium musicum every week or two. That is indeed a laudable undertaking, in part because it provides them with the opportunity to refine further their excellent art, and in part, too, because they learn from the pleasing harmonies how to speak

20 F. W. Marpurg, Der critische Musicus an der Spree (Berlin), September 2, 1749. 21 Quoted in Robert Donnington, Op. cit., 576. Bach apparently also gave active consideration to the acoustics of the room as well as in the plan for seating his musicians. See Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, Op. cit., 276, 278.

9 together concordantly, even though these same people mostly disagree with one another at other times.22

Finally, may we remind the reader of the chronology of this topic. First, the Church opposed emotion in general in the life of the Christian for 1,000 years. Then, humanism, especially in the field of music, begins to reintroduce the true definition of music, that it is a vehicle for communicating emotions. By the Baroque Period this has become the center of attention for musicians, representative views of which in Germany have been presented above. Given this history, it is ironic that one also finds in Germany during the Baroque some religious poetry which has now adopted the focus of humanism. C. Eltester has written an extraordinary religious poem describing a young lady singing a song to the accompaniment of a theorbo, which is almost sensual in its imagery. When, fairest maid, there stirs your mouth all filled with sense, And then there through your lips a tone inspired does sing, Which by sweet song does bear the Lord His offering, The heavens are themselves seduced to reverence.

A something which comes near to bearing us from hence, A hidden current shows -- our heart enamoring, And even through secret force the spirits capturing -- That paradise within your voice has residence.

It seems the angels are descended from the sky And make themselves through you our choir’s ally, For what men everywhere do round them hear and heed, And what your lovely mouth in heaven’s wise has sung, That is a masterpiece poured from the angels’ tongue, Which does the very soul from out its being lead.23

A poem by Daniel Omeis was intended to help fill the listener with religious ecstasy. It was a rare religious poem before the Baroque Period which used such language. If here sweet notes can bring me near to ecstasy, How blissful I shall hear the angels’ melody,

22 Johann Kuhnau, Der musicalische Quack-Salber (Dresden, 1700), Chapter I. Kuhnau (1660-1722), like Bach, was the music director of St. Thomas in Leipzig. Although known today as a composer, he was educated in law and mathematics and was capable in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. 23 C. Eltester (d. c. 1732), “Als sie ein Lied in die darzu gespielte Theorbe sangl,” in George Schoolfield, The German Lyric of the Baroque (New York: AMS Press, 1966), 93.

10 My God, when they for You Your thrice blest praises sing, And through eternity Your grace and glory ring.

My soul turns full of soul, when it a sweet sound hears. The sweetest song of all, oh God, from You appears. Oh, in Your awfulness let key and tune resound, That, where I pleasure find, Your pleasure too be found.24

24 Magnus Daniel Omeis (1646-1708), “Wenn du etwas Liebliches horest,” in Ibid., 239. Omeis studied law at the Universities of Altdorf and Strassburg and eventually became a professor of poetry at the former.