The Perception of Musical Expression in the Nineteenth Century: The Case of the Glorifying Hymnic*

Abstract

Music conveys expressive meaning, and it elicits affective and associative responses in listeners. Historical documents from the 19th century contain reflections about the perceived expression of and affective responses to music in a wide range of works, including symphonies and operas. Therefore, we asked what verbal descriptors found in contemporary writings from the 19th century provide information about the perceived expressive qualities. Additionally, we examined whether the sources hint at situational / contextual factors. To this end, we investigated the descriptors used to describe the perception of a specific type of music, defined through a set of 16 features. We called this type of music “Glorifying Hymnic.” We searched a large amount of 19th-century symphonic music to identify as many excerpts displaying these features. Then, we investigated the description of the listening experience of the excerpts mainly using the RIPM (Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals) database. We found 47 compositions with 48 excerpts that matched our rather strict criteria and 102 textual sources that provided sufficiently concrete information regarding how several of the excerpts have been perceived. We found a very high degree of consistency in the description of the music: It has been described as glorious, powerful, triumphant and victorious, grand, joyous and happy, solemn, exciting, noble, tranquil and sometimes proud. It also elicited associations with singing, especially choral singing, and with religion. Only very few connections between music perception and situational factors were detected relating to religious associations and associations of the music with choral singing. They might refer to special circumstances in France and Germany respectively. We discuss our findings in the context of both historical perspectives and musicpsychological models.

Visual Mental Imagery Evoked in Indian Classical Music: A Listener-Oriented Study

“…Discussions and investigations concerning musical emotions are frequently based on two theories, a discrete theory (Ekman, 1992(Ekman, , 1999) and a dimensional theory, which constitutes such dimensions as arousal and valence (Russell, 1980). Most studies in music research contain presuppositions from these two theories (Hentschel & Kreutz, 2021). While the dimensional theory of emotion has mostly been applied in music induction studies (Girard & Wright, 2018;Grewe et al, 2007;Nagel et al, 2007), the discrete emotion model has been favored in studies on perceived emotions (Argstatter, 2016;Mohn et al, 2011;Schubert et al, 2013;Song et al, 2016).…”

“…The evocation of VMI in response to music has caught the interest of behavioral scientists since it is an important mechanism to induce emotions (Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008) and plays an integral role in the listening experience (Küssner & Eerola, 2019). Current research on VMI in response to music focuses on diverse issues, such as the antecedence of perceived and felt emotions to VMI, reaction time to VMI (Day et al, 2020), occurrence of VMI in live settings or concerts (Deil et al, 2022), level of emotional engagement and experience of VMI when listening to musical works (Presicce & Bailes, 2019), and influence of musical structure on VMI (Dahl et al, 2022; Herff et al, 2021).…”

“…In a concert environment, when listeners were exposed to stimuli validated as sad, types of VMI reported were negative, for instance, death, violence, war, or torture (Deil et al, 2022). Studies on musical characteristics and emotions showed that the tempo mediated the VMI response; faster beats induce positive VMI (Herff et al, 2021), and music with similar characteristic features (beats, rhythm) induced identical types of VMI, such as nature or water (Dahl et al, 2022).…”