The Meaning of Music

The title to this post is ambiguous.   So much so that its intended meaning might not strike the reader at all.  What I mean is that certain music phrases have been used, for centuries, to convey certain musical feelings and moods; so much is obvious.  But we expect that they convey different feelings to different people.  No!  From hearing the same phrases used with the same meaning (by different composers) so often, music lovers can begin to understand a conventional meaning to these phrases, which the composer could (I'm not saying they consciously do, but they could choose to do so) use them to underline particular feelings!

On my own, I had begun to think this way as a teenager.  But then, I came across a book by Deryck Cooke, a somewhat specialized British author and musicologist—now dead—called The Language of Music, in which he tried to prove this very thesis: that certain musical phrases can be used intentionally to convey specific emotions. 

Cooke is best known for his thematic analysis of Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs.  This is a cycle of four operas, based on an epic poem, and—I believe—certain germanic myths and legends.  These matters could take an interested music lover a lifetime to get to the bottom of, but the basic idea is that Wagner deliberately used musical melodic fragments—called Leimotifs—to convey the dramatic logic, the cause and effect, of the thoughts and actions of the protagonists of the opera.

Soon after I had learned about Deryck Cooke, I stumbled on a two-CD album, with copious accompanying notes and musical illustrations—today easily available in almost any public library; certainly in our own—in which he sets out his analysis of the Leitmotifs of Wagner's Ring Cycle, and I for one think his analysis is exactly on the money.  It is a huge edifice; and that's what the opera cycle needed, lasting close to fifteen hours, total, to hold it together.

I'm not going into the Wagner operas today.  But the old hymns of Easter illustrate one of the family of musical phrases that are most obvious, in those that I recognized as a youth: triumph, and joy!

Those two words, more than any others, encapsulate what Believers feel at Easter.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I'm an atheist, but anyway ...)  Actually, there are two emotions I want to talk about: the feeling of triumph; and the feeling of completion.

The rising scale.  In the scale of C, the notes C, D, E, F, G, in sequence, convey a feeling of assertion, a feeling of having something to say.  Even just the rising triad, C, E, G, which sounds like the beginning of a fanfare, sounds like a challenge, or even a defiant challenge.  And there is a feeling of uncompleted business.  (Note that, almost necessarily, the meanings I'm trying to convey are vague.  There is no exact correspondence between musical meanings, and literary meaning.  The phrase can be abbreviated to just a rising fifth: C-G, and still convey that feeling of a challenge, or just a question: What?!

The second phrase I want to describe is the descending scale: C' B A G F E D C.  As Deryck Cooke describes it, this musical phrase conveys a feeling of coming home, of closure.  The two half- phrases C' B A G, and F E D C convey parts of this idea of conclusion. 

In a lot of Easter music, these two phrases are combined, to convey a challenge, triumph, satisfaction, the conclusion of an argument.  The easiest examples are, of course, Easter hymns. 

One of the oldest, and most famous Easter hymns is: The strife is o'er, the battle won.  The tune by Palestrina sorry  Melchior Vulpius, I believe, incorporates both the challenge tune, and the satisfaction tune. 

There is another hymn, not as ancient, nor as well known as the Palestrina: This joyful Easter tide, often used as an anthem for Easter.  This tune, too, incorporates the two phrases, for a challenge, and for a successful conclusion.  If I can, I will color-code the examples. 

Here is the music of The Strife is O'er, the tune of Melchior Vulpius.  Again, the tune dates from around 1611:

The tune for the first two measures has the descending phrase, which I described as conclusive, satisfaction.  The next phrase or two, in the example, raise the challenges; the ending descending scale repeats the satisfactory conclusion.  In fact, the entire tune is replete with satisfaction, confidence, and, I suppose, celebration.
 

Here is a reconstruction of This Joyful Eastertide, which is apparently derived from a Dutch tune of the 17th century, harmonized by the well-known arranger of sacred music, Charles Wood (but here by me).

The first complete measure has the ascending tune of assertion and challenge.

The last three complete measures have the complete descending scale of F major!  As a treble, I loved to sing this line, and I'm sure, so does anyone singing this part.

Conclusions

Both these examples are from the 17th century, and that's not a coincidence; that was the era of protestant congregational singing, and that doubtless had a lot to do with establishing the emotional content of musical phrases.  Some would argue that this entire phenomenon flows from hymnody.

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