Review of The expressiveness of perceptual experience: Physiognomy reconsidered.

Abstract

Pratt (1931, p. 203) writes: "It is perhaps unfortunate, for a theoretical understanding of music, that these characters of tonal movement, because of their formal affinity to bodily movements, are so frequently described by words which also denote moods and emotions, for these auditory characters are not emotions at all. They merely sound the way moods feel." Elsewhere Pratt writes: "The composer who strives to give musical expression to his mood or emotion manages to discover and mould, presumably in most cases quite unconsciously, a tonal design which resembles very closely the internal pattern of his own affective state. The music then sounds the way an emotion feels" (quoted in Ferguson, 1960, p. 27).