Emotional Ornamentation in Performances of a Handel Sonata

Abstract

Ornamentation is one aspect of music associated with emotional affect in Baroque music. In an empirical study, the relationship between ornamentation and emotion was investigated by asking a violinist and flutist to ornament three melodies in different ways to express four emotions: happiness, sadness, love, and anger. The performers adapted the type of ornaments to the instructed emotion as well as the characteristics of the ornaments. The flutist specifically varied the duration, timing, and complexity of the ornamentation, while the violinist varied the complexity, density, and sound level of the performances. The ability of the performers to communicate the emotions was tested in a listening experiment.Communication was found to be generally successful, with the exception of the communication of happiness. This success was not due to general consensus about the expression of emotions through ornamentation. Rather the listeners were sensitive to a performer's specific use of ornamentation.Received March 28, 2006, accepted July 10, 2007 Key words: emotion, ornamentation, affects in Baroque music, performance, perception Emotional Ornamentation 3 Emotional Ornamentation in Performances of a Handel SonataThe aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between variations in melodic ornamentation and perceived emotion in the context of modern performances of a Handel sonata. The research aimed to contribute to the understanding of the attribution of emotional qualities to music and the communication of emotion using music. The questions asked were: What musical qualities relate to perceived emotions, and, specifically, what is the role, if any, of ornamentation in the communication of emotion for modern day musicians?These questions are distinct from the question of how listeners come to experience emotions in response to music. Listeners' experience of emotions may be more subjective and socially dependent than their perception of emotion (see for discussions Gabrielsson, 2001Gabrielsson, /2002Scherer, 2004;Scherer & Zentner, 2001).Previous research has shown that listeners are quite consistent in labeling music with an emotional quality, especially where it concerns basic emotions (Gabrielsson & Juslin, 2003). This research has started to distinguish relevant musical features that are responsible for labeling music with a specific emotional category.Perhaps not surprisingly, almost every musical feature, including aspects of the performance, may influence the perception of emotions; this may include harmony, rhythm, melody, tempo, dynamics, timbre, vibrato, and articulation (see e.g., Gabrielsson & Juslin, 1996;Hevner, 1935;Sundberg, Iwarsson, & Hagegård, 1995). Some of these features are apparently more important than others. For example, tempo and mode are both salient features, but, when contrasted, tempo can overrule the effect of mode to distinguish happy from sad sounding music (Gagnon & Peretz, 2003).The exact influence of musical features on the perception of emotions is, howeve...

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