Musical emotions : some ideas from history, philosophy and psychology

From the mid-seventeenth century, we know that musicians aimed to persuade the audience of their emotional truth. Performers were expected to feel the emotions they wanted to convey to listeners. Composers focused on the capacity of music to move the emotions, and expressly sought to imitate the ‘passions’ or ‘affections’. This ‘doctrine of affections’ was a revival of the ideas of antiquity and the idea that different emotions could be represented by particular tonalities, rhythms and motifs. In this movement, expressive musicality reached new heights, new styles of instrumental accompaniment were gaining momentum, and music moved from the church to the theatre. Furthermore, tonality was shifting from a modally based framework to the major-minor system that is still in use today.