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It's worth to note specially, that "affect theory" did nor emerged spontaneously.
Let's remind that it borrowed its methodologigal basis from such systems as
sensualism and philosophical rationalism, both playing dominant role in that
times. It blended quite well with the traditions of normative aesthetics, the true
child of classicism, which, in its turn, reflected the "order" and "harmony" of
absolutist state. But let's return to the music.
Since Renascence (more precisely, XVI century) major and minor tonalities
began to dominate in music. They were characterized by the "affect theory" as
two opposite emotional poles. It's worth to note that corresponding semantics of
them remained up to present, even in the common language constructions:
"major" or "minor" mood, etc. During the process of temperament, which had
been completed at the end of XVII century, the variety of all possible tonalities
were gradually put into circulation, until there was the whole army of them - 12
major and 12 minor tonalities, to express the range of human feelings. On the
base of musical experience and some theoretical concepts, a number of tables
of correspondences between tonalities and affects have been elaborated,
sometimes with rather funny descriptions. Look, for example, at M.Charpentier's
table for major tonalities:
C-dur - cheerful and warlike
D-dur - joyful and VERY warlike
E-dur - quarrelsome and irritable
Es-dur - cruel and stern
F-dur - violent and hasty
G-dur - tender and joyful
A-dur - joyful and pastoral
B-dur - majestic and joyful
H-dur - stern and sorrowful.
The problem of the exposure of the intention, the meaning of tonalities (or their
semantics, in modern terms) has become, let me say it, the favorauble ground
of theoretic discussions in the rational XVII century. Though even in that time a
good number of scholars understood clearly that "affect" aspect of music is not
determined by the tonalities only. They tried to establish connections between
affects and certain timbres, tempos, melodies, stressing their dependence upon
the context. But the task to find out semantics and meaning of the tonalities still
attracted many by its evident simplicity, and "provoked" any researcher by the
existence of structure in their variety and the finite number of them
(12 x 2 = 24).
There are many explanations of the diversity of emotional appraisals of different
tonalities, especially the polar emotional opposition between major and minor.
Somebodies consider it as a mere tradition (casual to some extent), established
at the beginning of major/minor system formation. Others accentuate theoretical
and instrumental complications of handling different tonalities and put forward
physiological explanations. They might assume some subconscious emotional
reactions to the nuances of notations, such as the number of alternation signs in
the tonality's name and the relative number of black of white keys in the
corresponding scales. Or they might refer to the physiological features of the
hearing organ, which make it predisposed to a certain tones, thus determing the
diversity of emotional appraisals of the tonalities.
The famous composer R. Shumann imtroduced popular notion "the circle of
fifths" in a special issue, titled just as "Characterization of Tonalities". He
arranged in a circle the series of tonalities, separated by fifth interval. While
moving along the circle, a certain regularity can be noticed in the transition from
"simple" C-dur to more "complex" sharp keys, with Fis-dur at the top, and then
backwards through the flat keys to C-dur again. He does not claim for any more,
noticing only that "the difference between major and minor has to be stated from
the very beginning. The first is creative, masculine principle, the second is
passive and female one". As regards tonalities themselves, he dares only the
following remark: "The simplest feelings need simple tonalities, more complex
feelings seek for more rare ones, less common to the hearing sense". He does
not advice to anybody to try more concrete approach, mocking naive "normative
declarations" of one of enthusiastic contemporary, who, for instance, called Eminor "the girl in white with a bow on the bosom" and found in G-minor
"unpleasant feeling" and - which touched him most - "the gloomy biting one's
lips".
But immediately the question arises: is it possible that the representatives of
"affect theory" had been altogether wrong, and the semantics of tonalities and
the rules of handling them are absolutely arbitrary? Schumann tactfully hints
that "the truth lies in the middle, as usual" and put forward an assumption "the
process that enables the composer to choose this or that fundamental tonality
to express his feelings, is as inexplicable as the creative process of the man of
genius, who creates both the new idea and a form, which serves as a container
for it". Schumann goes on: "One cannot say that any certain feeling, in order to
be expressed adequately, needs to be translated into music by means of only
one certain tonality". But he can't agree with those who believe that "everything
can be expressed in any tonality". Actually, at present time (and lately), the
majority of musicians share this point of view, as our opinion poll has shown,
though they might often claim for their own stable preferences, formed in course
of education and their own creative work, due to the influence of authorative
teachers, certain music school, spirit of epoch, and a number of other
sometimes quite unexpected determinants. The existence of such preferences,
i.e. personal systems of tonality semantics is neither positive nor negative,
being just a sign of ontological status of subjectivity, which is obligatory attribute
of the art, created by the individual and for other individuals. As A.S.Pushkin
said in one of his genial remarks: "the poet can be judged only according to the
law he establishes for himself"...
After all the above reflections on the semantics of tonalities, let's remind that the
language of musicology is synesthetic by the nature, and widely applies
intersensory transfer in its terms. For instance, such notions as "low/high pitch",
"pattern of a melody", "tone color", "harmony color", "chromatics", are
constructed using vocabulary of visual sensations. More than that, to mark the
qualitative distinction between musical sounds of various instruments, many
languages designate it as "tone color" (English), "Klangfarbe" (German). No
wonder then, that many musicians and poets assign certain colors (by their own
choice) to the timbres: "The blue-dawn sound of the flute" (K. Balmont).
"Timbre display of the mode" - in such exact and capacious words the essence
of the notion "tonality" has been characterized by B. Asaf'ev. No wonder that
this functional closeness had led many musicians to "color" tonalities too. Of
course they made it in associative, metaphoric, imaginative sense, contrary to
the opinion of some researchers, who believe that such composers as RimskyKorsakov, Scriabin, Asaf'ev set color to tonalities on the level of real "cosensations". These composers left the evidences of their color-tonality
correspondences not only "in words", but also in their compositions (see Table
1).
Tonality
A. N. Scriabin
N. A. RimskyKorsakov
B. V. Asaf'ev
C major
red
white
G major
orange-pink
brownish-gold, light
D major
A major
green
E major
whitish-blue
B major
similar to E
major
F sharp
major
blue, bright
greyish-green
darkish, warm
red glow
somewhat darkish
and strong
F major
red
birch-tree
It is striking, how the history would repeat itself! The differences in color-tonality
systems which can be seen from Table 1, gave some researchers an occasion
to put forward a number of incredible explanations of their origin (though we
understand now, that the very expression "color hearing" is itself a metaphor).
Brain abnormality, the play of chances, esoteric feature of psychics, the
rudiment of primitive syncretism - these are only part of assumptions regarding
color hearing of composers, that could be met in musicological studies of
passed years. Though it is clear, that "color-hearing" abilities of these
composers are not at all unique case! Being asked, everybody would agree that
the word "Sunday" is of bright, red color, while "Monday" is grey and gloomy.
That is just common synesthesia, not clinical one. But educated mind has very
stable predujce - to seek for "objective" laws for anything, including colortonality correspondences, and to assume them single meaning. Just as it was in
XVII century in "affect theory" regarding semantics of tonalities. The musicians
themselves had contributed a lot to support this predujce. Scriabin, for instance,
having some attitude to solipsism and messianism, considered his color-tonality
system as universal, the only possible one, and claimed it being obligatory for
everyone! More than that, on this reason he put forward the idea of "lighting
symphony", and realized it in "Prometheus" in the form of coloring of harmonies
and tonalities according to his universal scheme. He was so confident in
absolute common meaning of his own "color hearing" that he did not leave any
instructions regarding colors in the "Luce" part of "Prometheus" score!...
Does it mean that the sphere of color-tonality correspondences is a kingdom of
absolute chaos and subjectivizm? No, it's not so - see once more the above
Schubert's arguments on the semantics of tonalities... Is it true, that the
composer, being attracted by the idea of "lighting symphony", has no way to
visualize his tonalities into colors, by the reason that "color hearing", as it
appears, is not the same for all people? No, it's not so, and such statement of a
question is not justified. The true answer we have already learned from
Pushkin's remark - the poet (the musician, light-musician) could be judged only
according to the laws he has set for himself!...
It is quite another matter, that such purpose - to visualize in colors the tonal
system of "Prometheus" - does not exhaust at all the whole potentials of music
synthesis. By the way, this was clear to Scriabin himself. Already in the course
of his first rather timid experiment with "Prometheus", he abandoned a principle
of color-tonality "parallelizm" in favour of great potentialities of sight-hearing
counterpoint, sight-hearing polyphony. But this is a subject for another story...
Tonalidad
A. N. Scriabin
Comandante de C rojo
N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov
B. V. Asaf'ev
blanco
Un comandante
verde
Comandante de E blanquecino-azul
Comandante de B similar al
comandante de E
melanclico, azul
marino con de acero
grisceo-conduzca el
brillo; el color de
tormenta-nubes
omnious
grisceo-verde
De D comandante violeta
completamente
darkish, caliente
resplandor rojo
Un comandante
plano
grisceo-violeta de
carcter dreamy
delicado
purpurino-violeta
De B comandante similar de E al
completamente
comandante
completamente
Comandante de F rojo
Re mayor amarillo, brillante luz del da, amarillento, real rayos del sol, el brillo
del mismo modo que la radiacin intensa de la luz (como si uno mira a Tiflis de
David Montaa en el da caluroso
Una de las principales verde claro, primavera, rosa, lo que es el color de la
eterna juventud ms bien alegre, intoxicante de nimo que percibe luz, pero
como eso, es cerca de Re mayor
E principales blanquecino-azul azul, saphire, brillante, azul oscuro, nocturno las
noches, cielo estrellado muy, muy profundo y perspectiva
B grandes similares a E principales sombro, oscuro azul grisceo con acero de
plomo brillo, el color de omnious tormenta de nubes
Fa sostenido mayor azul, brillante verde-grisceo madura la cscara de naranja
(C plana mayor)
Re bemol mayor darkish violeta, rojo clido resplandor
La bemol mayor violeta-prpura-violeta grisceo de carcter delicado de
ensueo el color de cereza (seccin transversal)
Mi bemol mayor de acero de color con brillo metlico oscuro, sombro, grisazulado (la tonalidad de "fortaleza y los pueblos") la sensacin de cielo azul,
azul
Si bemol mayor similares a Mi bemol mayor darkish algo fuerte y el sentimiento
de marfil colo
Fa mayor rojo verde, claro, pastoral, el color de la primavera del rbol de
abedul Es sorprendente, cmo la historia se repita! Las diferencias en color de los
sistemas de tonalidad que puede verse en el cuadro 1, dio algunos
investigadores la oportunidad de presentar una serie de increbles
explicaciones de su origen (aunque entendemos ahora, que la expresin
misma "color audiencia" es en s mismo una metfora) . Brain anormalidad, el
juego de posibilidades, caracterstica esotrica de psquicos, la primitiva
rudiment de sincretismo - estos son slo parte de supuestos relativos a color
audiencia de los compositores, y que podran resolverse en los estudios
musicolgicos del pasado ao. Aunque es evidente, que "el color a la
audiencia" la capacidad de estos compositores no son en todos los caso nico!
Al ser preguntado, todo el mundo estara de acuerdo en que la palabra
"domingo" es brillante, color rojo, mientras que "Lunes" es de color gris y
sombro. Esto es comn de sinestesia, no una clnica. Pero la mente se ha
educado muy estable predujce - para tratar de "objetivo" para nada las leyes,
incluida la tonalidad del color de correspondencias, as como a asumir ellos
solo sentido. As como lo fue en siglo XVII por "afectar a la teora" en relacin
con la semntica de tonalidades. Los msicos mismos haban contribuido
mucho a que apoyen este predujce. Scriabin, por ejemplo, tener actitud de
algunos solipsismo y mesianismo, considerado su color-tonalidad como
sistema universal, el nico posible, y aleg que sea obligatorio para todos! Ms
que eso, por esta razn ha propuesto la idea de "iluminacin sinfona", y se
dieron cuenta de que en "Prometeo" en forma de colorear de armonas y
tonalidades de acuerdo con su rgimen universal. Fue tanta confianza absoluta
en el sentido comn de su propio "color audiencia" que l no dej instrucciones
acerca de los colores en el "Luce" parte de "Prometeo" Resultado! ...
Quiere decir que el mbito de la tonalidad de color correspondencias es un
reino de caos absoluto y subjectivizm? No, no es tan - ver una vez ms por
encima de los argumentos de Schubert en la semntica de tonalidades ... Es
Tonalidades y su simbolismo
Las cosas no puedo esperar para que diga: Alex Ross en Radio y tener a su Eplana menor
Jos. Horowitz en la msica clsica en los Estados Unidos
Mi blog en clave de simbolismo provocado algn tipo de respuesta, es decir,
que cualquiera que sea el simbolismo se adjunta, se encuentra con el oyente.
Si creo que representa Do mayor jubilance, la felicidad, la victoria, etc entonces
eso es lo que es - para m y otra persona quien comparte ese sentimientopuramente subjetiva. Es probablemente cierto que muchos compositores han
seleccionado especialmente claves para expresar sentimientos particular (pero
vase ms adelante) y las listas se pueda hacer acerca de lo que escribi en lo
fundamental para mostrar a un acuerdo. Sin embargo, podemos encontrar el
mayor nmero de excepciones, tambin.