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Is music a form of communication, conveying specific messages like a language? Unlike spoken language, music does not have prescribed references, and its meaning isn’t predetermined. The emotional and suggestive nature of musical sounds raises questions about whether music functions as a language. While a chord or melody does not have a fixed meaning, a composer might need to understand human emotions deeply to create impactful music.
The text explores the complex relationship between music and meaning, challenging the notion that music functions as a form of linguistic communication. It argues that the artistic value of music lies not in its ability to convey concrete messages but in its capacity to translate intuitive, emotional experiences into a structured form. This perspective criticizes the 19th-century romantic view of music as an expressive medium akin to language.
Eduard Hanslick’s and Susanne Langer’s theories are highlighted, both asserting that music’s beauty and significance are intrinsic to its sound forms, not derived from external connotations as in verbal language. Hanslick emphasizes that while language uses sound as a mere vehicle for expressing thoughts, music treats sound as an end in itself, focused on the aesthetic experience. Langer adds that music, unlike language, lacks fixed meanings and instead embodies the fluid, emotional nuances of human experience.
The text concludes by recognizing that music, as a non-discursive symbolic form, captures the essence of psychic processes and emotional life more directly than rational, discursive language. It suggests that music’s communicative power is unique and operates outside the conventional frameworks of linguistic symbolism.
In essence, the idea that musical language can offer a straightforward description is flawed. Musical language does not describe but translates a composer’s intuitive sound representations into objective sonority. Expression in music, equated with the qualities of musical elements or structures, imbues these with life, making them comprehensible. Without such expression, complex pieces like Webern’s Symphony op. 21 or Stravinsky’s Movements for piano and orchestra would be mere cacophony. Expression, more conceptual and demonstrated by descriptive adjectives, is crucial for understanding music’s structure and quality.
However, rationalizing expression as discrete points fails to capture the procedural nature of music. Terms like lyrical, dissonant, or efficient only punctuate the end of an expressive accumulation. Concepts can only generalize, failing to grasp the specifics of musical articulation. They lack the ability to indicate the procedural state, specificity, or dynamics of musical composition. Unlike static architectural structures, musical structures are dynamic and continuously evolving, governed by real-time progression and intuitive final forms.
Concepts do not represent the simultaneous interactions within music or the continuous provisional syntheses. The essence of music—energy, pulsation, expansion, accumulation—is beyond conceptual representation. The dynamic meaning of music, accumulating over time and realized fully only after performance, remains outside the realm of conceptualization. Ignoring the dynamic form that generates meaning alters the original content of the composition. Thus, the concept fails to explain the process of expressive accumulation and the consubstantiality of structure and expression in music, visible only in the score and audible in performance.
1. The Nature of Heroic and Pathetic Expression
Musical pieces such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” and Sonata No. 8 “Pathétique” exemplify heroic or pathetic expressions. These compositions function through fluctuating zones of expression, both horizontally and vertically. The overall perception of these areas culminates in consciousness, which filters and selects significant elements to form a general expression. Every detail in a musical composition is crucial as it carries a constitutive meaning. However, conceptual language struggles to capture this hyper-textuality specific to musical phenomena.
2. Semanticization in Music vs. Conceptual Imposition
The semantic outlines imposed by concepts provide precise meanings. In contrast, musical compositions, with their structural and expressive nuances, are provisional and incomplete. Unlike objects like chairs or tables, music, particularly from composers like Wagner and Webern, avoids explicit developmental conclusions and thus cannot be firmly categorized as an object.
3. The Nature of Musical Expression in Performance
In performance, musical expression is less determinable due to its accumulative nature in sonority, contrasting with the posthumous nature of notional descriptions. It becomes difficult to demarcate the boundaries of expression within a musical piece, unlike the clear meanings achieved through language.
4. Music Perception: Otherness, Mimicry, or Empathy?
Music perception goes beyond mere auditory enjoyment; it is elegantly invasive and emotionally stimulating. Music exists publicly, targeting a music-loving audience and justifying its status as a cultural, artistic, and expressive object. The transmission of a human experience through music is evident, yet whether music carries a translatable musical message remains a debated issue.
5. Composer and Audience Interaction
Music composition involves a complex relationship between composers, performers, and audiences. Composers and performers are influenced by their cultural and historical contexts, and successful works often reflect the collective consciousness of their time. Music’s public performance tradition originates from the cultural practices of previous periods, such as the romantic period’s explicit inclusion of audiences in concerts.
6. Music and its High Cultural Value
European classical music, preferred in special spaces, is distinguished from genres like jazz or rock due to its elite cultural roots. This high culture, originating from religious and aristocratic traditions, emphasizes music’s ability to represent the unrepresentable and non-objective, such as divine or transcendental concepts.
7. Historical and Sociological Contexts
Music has historically functioned within various social institutions, such as temples and theaters, contributing to ideological impregnation and community organization. The elite culture of noble courts also played a significant role in elevating music’s cultural status. Public institutions like opera houses and philharmonics later adopted these traditions, reinforcing music’s high cultural value and collective audience experience.
8. A musical Message : A Complex Question
The existence of a musical message and its reception by audiences are complex issues. While music can reflect collective moods and historical contexts, the idea of a musical message distributed among musical elements like melody, harmony, and rhythm remains contentious. Historical works composed for specific audiences raise questions about the intelligibility of their intended messages to contemporary listeners.
9. Reception and the Psychological Argument
Musical reception is a non-linear process involving phases of active effort and passive accumulation. Attention management during a performance affects how audiences perceive and integrate musical material. Composers intuitively consider these phases, designing compositions to accommodate the fluctuating attention spans of listeners.
10. The Role of Musical Structure in Reception
Classical forms like the fugue and sonata allegro align with the psychological dynamics of reception. They balance attention-stimulating sections with less demanding phases, ensuring that audiences can engage with and retain the music. Works by composers like Bach and Beethoven demonstrate this intricate relationship between musical structure and reception.
In this discussion, we question the necessity of searching for notional meanings in music, considering that the structure of musical compositions often mirrors the processes of the psyche. Insisting on explicit meanings might reflect an ignorance of music’s inherent expressive power, which naturally resonates with our emotions and imagination. Translatable expressions are only rough analogies of the emotional impacts of organized sound. This is particularly true for abstract compositions by Ives, Lutoslawski, or Webern, where any supposed message is ultimately irrelevant. The perception of musical message is more about the abstract interplay of psychic processes that make musical experience possible.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.24193/subbmusica.2023.spiss1.05