Breaking with common practice: Exploring modernist musical emotion

Abstract

Experimental research on musical emotion has identified clear links between specific aspects of musical structure and emotional responses. However, growing recognition of changes in the affective meaning of specific cues over time raises intriguing questions about the degree to which these links hold across historical eras. In particular, the traditional focus on compositional principles from common-practice period music (ca. 1600–1900) might not capture how emotion is perceived in later compositions. Here we explore perceived emotion ratings in a set of 24 preludes by Dmitri Shostakovich (Op. 34), comparing the effects of cues in his preludes vs. those by Bach and Chopin. We find that prosodic cues (i.e., pitch height, timing) play a stronger role than mode in these pieces. Because music theorists widely recognize Shostakovich’s music as tonal, this result reflects not his abandonment of mode, but rather his decision to use it differently than his predecessors. This provides an important perspective complementing a growing body of research using score-based analyses to explore historical changes in the “meaning” of specific cues. Our findings illustrate how modern compositions can provide novel insight into cues’ historically changing roles in emotional communication.