There's a thread going on at TOP about tearful and emotional responses to music - those moments that "get you" every time.  Someone has piped up with the opinion that he finds it "odd" that people might react with tears to a musical moment for no other reason than the way it sounds (no personal associations in one's life, no narrative or words to lead one down that emotional path).  He thinks this "self-indulgence" must show no true appreciation of the music, as the emotions must "distract" from giving one's full attention.

I don't want to pick on someone I don't know in a forum he's (probably?) not participating on.  But I feel he's articulated an attitude that has bothered me for some time - that most people seem to be emotionally moved by music only because of personal experiences they associate with it, or because of the words and narrative accompanying it.  This attitude puts instrumental music in a peculiar, "abstract" light with a lesser emotional impact than song, opera, oratorio etc, unless someone happens to have a personal reason to react to it.

I'm not downplaying the emotional impact of words and narrative, nor am I denying the power of particular associations one might have.  But my deepest emotional reactions almost always happen in response to instrumental music - to the way the music sounds rather than to any stories attached to it.  (I know it's not always easy to separate the two.)  Am I the peculiar one?  What is it about music that causes profound emotional reactions in you?

(My more concrete purpose in getting to grips with this question, by the way, is wanting to understand why it's so much harder to promote an instrumental chamber music concert than one with a singer in, and trying to find a way to change that...)

I wish I could remember who it was that said it, but somebody pointed out that a descending chromatic scale has an intrinsic melancholy about it. Something that H. Purcell made good use of.

Certainly that accords with my own experience as well - at least, whilst music that is associated with words or theatre, dance, etc., can be extremely moving, in terms of a response to the combined effect of all the elements, instrumental music can be just as much so for me. But perhaps I think in terms of a 'third way' between 'how the music sounds' and a 'story attached to it' - instrumental music that I find moving tends to track a type of emotional/psychological trajectory (at the most obvious level, through the juxtapositions, combinations and interactions of the various emotions that I find manifest in it). I do think of this as a type of 'narrative', but without having a concrete 'object' (nor necessarily 'representing' something that can be apprehended better through recourse to means other than abstract sounds and abstract feelings). Though when one knows a certain amount about a composer, the circumstances in which they lived and worked, the general cultural/social climate of the time, it can be hard not to make some associations with these things. However, sometimes it works the other way round: I learn more about the person, their times, etc., through the music, rather than vice versa. In terms of whether emotional reactions come about through particular associations on the part of the singular individual (which thus might not be replicable for others), couldn't it equally be the case that one is moved through empathy with a particular type of emotional manifestation that is distinct to those one has experienced oneself?

There is a certain existing discourse that assumes that the response to instrumental music must by necessity only be possible in dry analytical terms, and 'close listening', let alone apprehension of motivic development and so on, constitute an activity far removed from the (to some vulgar) business of human emotion. The person you mention, on the basis of how you describe it (I haven't looked at that thread yet), seems to be outlining a common position in terms of the virtues of disinterested aesthetic contemplation, unsullied by emotional reactions. But that's not how I listen; those very aspects of listening just mentioned play a part in mapping out and heightening the sense of this sort of emotional 'narrative', as I see it.

I think I find myself in the same boat as you, strina, in the sense that it is the sound and structure of the music rather than any related narrative that often seems to have the more powerful emotional effect on me. But, just to complicate things and be awkward, the 'sounds' concerned can often be those of the human voice, particularly a solo human voice, as an expressive instrument.

As an aside, I would just be a leetle bit doubtful about this business of equating being moved to tears with having a deep emotional response (not that you were necessarily making that equation yourself). As someone who has gone through patches of being an unstoppable sobbing machine in my time, including at far too many concerts, I'm not at all convinced it has much to do with the profundity of the emotion. It's more of a ruddy nuisance and actually gets in the way in my experience. I never regard it as some sort of achievement. It's obviously very difficult to put some sort of relative 'value' on different emotional experiences and responses but, speaking purely for myself, the ones I have set most store by, have found richest, and am most grateful for, have actually tended not to be the 'moved to tears' ones.

As to what it is about particular pieces of music or particular performances that give them their emotional power, I've no idea. But I suspect it must be tied up somehow with some sort of structural isomorphism, in however complicated a way and at however many levels removed, between the music and the way the brain assimilates incoming material and generates emotions in other 'real world' contexts. Something fairly deep-rooted and structural, in other words, as well as semantic? Which might, in turn, have some sort of link with the particular emotional power of supposedly 'abstract' music? 

Well, might not the fact (if it is indeed the case) that different listeners each respond, emotionally, in their own very individual way, be a virtue as much as a vice?

It's his version of the Brahms Handel variations, isn't it? (Variationen ohne Fuge.)

The only time I've ever been in tears on stage was in a Kagel piece. (Mitternachtstük, the last movement, where the text (by the 18-year-old Schumann) starts talking about our life being nothing but an unresolved seventh chord...) Although there was a performance of Mahler 4 that came close.

I insist on a distinction between music of emotional depth, which can be genuinely moving, and that which is merely sentimental, producing instantaneous manipulative effects in the manner of a Hollywood music. But the two things often get conflated.

But, to continue a point re British musicians in the OVPP thread, what is a defining attribute, to my ears, is a style of performance in which everything is calculated, self-conscious, detached, regardless of other surface particularities of the style. That is the most immediate thing that I hear, and turns me off almost instantly, though it is true of the vast majority of British performances (there are a few exceptions of course, but very much in the minority). Certainly I can never be moved by that type of music-making (one reason for staying away from most such concerts and recordings). But this seems to accord with the attitude expressed by the person you were alluding to, strina, at the beginning of the thread. At a guess, I wonder if simply he associates all emotional response to a piece of music with sentimentality - a false dichotomy that is very common here in a culture notorious for its emotional immaturity and reticence - and thus holds up that detached aestheticism as the only possible alternative to Hollywoodisation of music? A vicious circle really, between the devil and the deep blue sea, but far from the only possibility for music. Outside of the classical sphere in Britain, certainly in terms of jazz and improvisation, the relationship between cynical calculation as against spontaneity, and the relationship in terms of the emotional effect thus produced, seems much better understood - the fact that those worlds, both in terms of performers and listeners, tend to occupy a rather different social milieu might be of relevance in this context.

To think of a composer very commonly thought of as obviously 'emotive', there are vastly different approaches to playing Rachmaninoff. The lack of anything calculated for easy effect in the composer's own performances, and those of some other fine Rachmaninoff performers (not just pianists) to me makes the emotional impact more rather than less, certainly in terms of making a lasting impression.

I don't disagree with you, Ian - but how would you distinguish one from the other?  Are there recognisable traits, memetic cliches, and so forth?  Isn't it rather true that music composed with the cynical intention of manipulating the emotions of the listener actually uses the same forms and devices as music of genuine depth...  but over-eggs the pudding with them?  So really its more a matter of taste and discretion on the composer's part?  

Is Hollywood necessarily wrong?  When composed as background music for a film, isn't it almost "legitimate" to go for the jugular, and underscore the emotional effect the Director hopes to achieve in any particular scene?   How would you assess Korngold's film music in this regard... successful, or cynical?   If it had been more understated, would it have been better/truer?   You or I may not necessarily admire or praise it,  but "schlock" is a recognised genre which has very serious underlying intentions - do we have the right to impose our own judgements on its o.t.t. values outside the historical context?

I would prefer to steer away from discussions of specific communities of people, but surely isn't it the case that the "British emotional reserve" is a longstanding matter, and not a C20th phenomenon?   For example,  Handel found that his opera audiences deserted him after a while - yet the self-same people were most delighted to return once the emotional challenge had been suffused with some faux-religiosity, plots from the Holy Bible, and a lot of choral fugues.