Introduction

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Table of contents — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Conclusion — Bibliography — The Spreadsheet — Summaries of analysed works — Thesis in PDF

The self-checkout machines in the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn play distinct and pleasing bell-like sound effects that are triggered by specific actions. When a client selects a payment option, the machine emits a chirpy diminished chord. When the payment is complete and a receipt is requested, the machine then emits an ascending first inversion major chord, in the same key. The effect is incredibly straightforward: the diminished chord sounds after the payment to remind the client to pick up their receipt, and when the major chord sounds the client knows that the transaction is complete, and no further actions are needed. For this system to feel so intuitive, these simple harmonies must resonate in similar ways for the store’s various clients. Put another way, a diminished chord must somehow “feel” different from a major one. Imagining such a machine playing a diminished chord for a completed transaction makes little sense—but why?

As those chirpy machines suggest, different chords and harmonic progressions have different emotional associations. While a melody can stay the same, its harmony and, therefore, emotional intention can change, thus informing its meaning. This can be demonstrated with a simple tune, such as this one¹:

The figured bass here indicates a basic I-V-I cadence. Alone, the words do not reveal much about the emotional resonance of this statement. Why is the speaker going home? Is home a source of comfort, or of tension and distress? Is the journey home the beginning of a story or the ending of one? The perfect cadence may lend the statement finality, but the answer to any of these questions is not clear. A new figured bass changes this entirely:

The final tonic chord has now been replaced with a deceptive VI. The deceptive cadence gives the melody an unexpected, perhaps melancholic, turn, suggesting that something foreboding or surprising lies ahead. Or perhaps the statement, which we expect to be self-contained, is not in fact complete; the deceptive cadence alerts the listener that there is more to come. Another example:

The melody is now harmonized with a plagal cadence. The experience for the listener may now be different: the return home may be understood as a relief or perhaps a sacred duty. As the plagal cadence is often used at the end of pieces and after a perfect cadence, it may suggest to the listener that going home is the much-awaited end of a long journey. A final example:

The melody has now been harmonized in a completely different key: A minor, rather than C major. The key itself changes the character significantly; in Western classical music, the minor mode typically denotes sadness. The listener may now understand that the return home is full of pain, or perhaps nostalgia, characterized by the significant dissonances in the dominant chord. However, a simple change in tonality of the final chord from minor to major suggests that although the past has been fraught, home will finally offer relief.

The above examples show how different harmonic realizations can alter the meaning of a phrase—although that meaning might be different for every listener. Despite the evidence offered of how foundational harmony is to musical expression and intention, singers are not typically encouraged to deepen their knowledge of harmonic language and its impact on their interpretation during their formative education. Baroque singers are also not necessarily taught basso continuo, even though this musical notation is omnipresent in the music they sing. One can wonder, however, whether this relationship between harmony and emotion exists only in the listener’s perception of the music they listen to, or whether an actual correlation has been written into the music itself. If it could be shown that composers themselves appeared to correlate harmony to emotion in some way, then a very strong argument could be made to encourage singers, and musicians in general, to look to harmony when making expressive choices.

This paper describes an experiment that was designed to further explore these ideas by determining what sort of connection exists between harmony and emotion in vocal music, if any. As quantifying emotion objectively can be difficult, the text of the sung music was used as a tool to do so. Unfortunately, the scope of this study did not allow for the large-scale analysis required to draw universal conclusions. The goal, therefore, was not to conclusively describe any and every composer’s use of harmonic language—rather, it was simply to explore the potential of such an idea. To do so, the following question was posed: what patterns can be found in the relationship between the harmony and the text of secco recitatives composed in France between 1700-1730? To answer that question, a harmonic analysis was performed on a selection of secco recitatives from the chosen time and place. This allowed for a dataset of harmonic passages and their associated text to be compiled. A pattern analysis of that dataset was then performed in an attempt to find correlations between specific cadences and chords and the text sung over them.

Since the structure of the experiment described here resembles that of a scientific experiment, the structure of this paper follows the guidelines for the same. First, existing literature on historical basso continuo playing and singing is reviewed in order to identify existing established links between harmony and interpretation. The methodology of the experiment is then described, followed by an extensive description of the results compiled. Finally, a discussion proposes what these results imply, and how they can be used to inform, or at the very least inspire, interpretation.

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