Musica ed emozioni. Recensione di Music and Emotion, numero monografico della rivista «Music Analysis», a cura di Michael Spitzer, 29/1-2-3 (2010)
The Special Issue on Music and Emotion published by «Music Analysis» in 2010 has been a stimulating reading for members of the Scientific Board of the «Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale», who invited the authors of the present article to write a review. The wealth of ideas, approaches and methodological perspectives proposed in this volume, however, is such that it became soon evident that it would be better to give this review the shape of an essay which summarizes and discusses in a critical perspective the content of the volume; but at the same time it also provides a more general discussion of the concept of emotion in music, highlighting some important theoretical and terminological issues. The essay is divided into five parts: after a brief description of the contents of Music and Emotion, the second part presents a survey of the different meanings of the concept of emotion within the volume, while the third provides an overview of the possible facets of the concept of emotion as applied to music. In the fourth part Luca Marconi examines the relationship between musical analysis and the study of emotions, stressing the need for an approach open to the integration of different methodological perspectives. The last part, written by Mario Baroni, discusses the concept of emotion “perceived within the musical text” in the listening of European classical music, and emphasizes how this kind of music can induce a complex emotional experience which is very different from the so-called “basic emotions” of daily life, which are the main object of study of the psychology of music.