The emotional power of musical performance

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Abstract

The extent to which the emotional power of music depends on performers has been disastrously underestimated, disastrously because so much writing on music over the past two centuries has been focused on the wrong phenomenon, attributing meanings and effects to scores which in fact emerge from imagined, remembered or revisited performances. It follows that when we attribute powers of persuasion to specific composers and compositions—power to change our state of mind, often to move us as deeply as almost anything we experience—we are in fact misattributing much. This conclusion brings with it all sorts of dangers, particularly for performers from whom it removes much comforting constraint, but at the same time it clarifies our task for those who study music’s affective process.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Emotional Power of Music
Subtitle of host publicationMultidisciplinary perspectives on musical arousal, expression and social control
EditorsTom Cochrane, Bernardino Fantini, Klaus R. Scherer
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter4
Pages41-54
Number of pages14
ISBN (Print)9780199654888
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013

Publication series

NameSeries in Affective Science
PublisherOxford University Press

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