# Sentimentality and music



## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

So here we are, listening to a piece of music, and we're so affected emotionally by it that we start to weep - I mean really weep, tears and all. How do we know whether this is the 'real thing', brought on by intensity of profound emotion; or whether it's just sentimental mawkishness?

You might say that we just _know_, but here's an example to explain why I'm troubled by the question. I've read several criticisms of _Suor Angelica_ that speak rather patronisingly about its 'sentimental' ending (when Anglica's dead son appears to her, courtesy of the Virgin). Now, it's true that I can't listen to the last 10 minutes of _Suor Angelica_ without my eyes filling with tears, but I don't believe these are mawkish, sentimental tears. Having spent 50 minutes in the company of Angelica, I find the final unfolding of events (not to mention the unbelievably fine music) really quite profound. It's an ending about the justification of a life of faith in the teeth of severe adversity, and about redemption and forgiveness through love; and this is transmitted so magnificently through the music that even though I don't personally share Angelica's beliefs, I have the privilege almost of seeing things through her eyes, and empathising with her faith.

Yet it seems there are critics who would dismiss this as sentimental claptrap; as false religiosity; perhaps even as kitsch. So where is the line drawn, and how do we draw it? How do other people respond if a particular piece of music evokes such extremes of emotion? Do you accept it as the profound experience that it seems to be at the moment; or do you call in the sentimentality police and prosecute it? And what are the pieces of music that trigger this kind of response for _you_? I've given one of my most notable examples, but I'd be very interested to read about other people's.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

i don't really trust critics over myself. if they could compose that well they probably would.
i have found that compositions affect me differently at various stages of my life.

dj


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2008)

david johnson said:


> i don't really trust critics over myself. if they could compose that well they probably would.
> i have found that compositions affect me differently at various stages of my life.
> 
> dj


Those that can, DO
Those that cant, TEACH
Those that can do neither, CRITISIZE


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

I wasn't necessarily restricting the word 'critic' to someone who writes criticism professionally. We're all critics in the broadest sense - we all listen to music and talk about our responses to it. That's what I want to get at here, really. I'm thinking about the difference between person X who listens to _Suor Angelica_, shudders at what is perceived as mawkish religiosity, and declares it to be bad; and person Y who is profoundly moved by it, and declares it to be magnificent. I'm wondering where the line is.

It seems important, because the general idea is that sentimentality implies a false, shallow emotion, as opposed to the 'real thing'. If Celine Dion's _Titanic_ song makes me cry, what does that mean, either about me, or about the song?


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Andante said:


> Those that can, DO
> Those that cant, TEACH
> Those that can do neither, CRITISIZE


 my personal experience leads me to disagree with the first two, but agree a bit with the last.

dj


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Elgarian said:


> I wasn't necessarily restricting the word 'critic' to someone who writes criticism professionally. We're all critics in the broadest sense - we all listen to music and talk about our responses to it. That's what I want to get at here, really. I'm thinking about the difference between person X who listens to _Suor Angelica_, shudders at what is perceived as mawkish religiosity, and declares it to be bad; and person Y who is profoundly moved by it, and declares it to be magnificent. I'm wondering where the line is.
> 
> It seems important, because the general idea is that sentimentality implies a false, shallow emotion, as opposed to the 'real thing'. If Celine Dion's _Titanic_ song makes me cry, what does that mean, either about me, or about the song?


maybe it only means that celine found the real thing for you.

dj


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> So where is the line drawn, and how do we draw it?


It's a distinction between justified and unjustified emotion. For example, if someone loses his entire family in a road accident it's reasonable for him to feel sad. The circumstances justify the emotion. Conversely, if my hamster gets eaten by the cat and I'm still weeping about it a week later, that would be unjustified.

Politicians are famous for using sentimental images to garner votes. For example, both Hitler and Saddam Hussein did it, and it makes me think sentimentality is closely aligned to brutality. If someone routinely experiences unjustified emotions of a sentimental type, it's reasonable to assume there's something wrong with their general emotional apparatus and, consequently, they may be capable of brutal behaviour and have an equally dysfunctional emotional response to that, e.g. enjoy it or feel no emotion at all. That's why sentimentality -- especially in those in a position of power -- is dangerous.

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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> It's a distinction between justified and unjustified emotion. For example, if someone loses his entire family in a road accident it's reasonable for him to feel sad. The circumstances justify the emotion. Conversely, if my hamster gets eaten by the cat and I'm still weeping about it a week later, that would be unjustified.


I agree with this (and your second paragraph) completely, and in the case of hamster versus family, the distinction is clear. But in these musical cases (music like _Suor Angelica_, say, or indeed the _Titanic_ song) it seems there's no such clearcut division. Angelica's plight (in the context of the drama) is entirely tragic, and for me Puccini's treatment of it seems justified, but to others it may seem no less manipulative (though less abhorrent, one would think) than Saddam's use of the child in the photo.

I suppose it comes down to deciding what is and isn't 'justified emotion' _in art_, rather than in life. (I don't have any answers here - on the contrary, I'm seeking them.)


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## Elaryad (Jul 29, 2008)

I think it's not all about the music. It's specially about yourself. Shostakovich's Cadenza on his 1st cello concerto breaks me emotionally. But to other individual the Candenza can be boring, strange, dissonant, nice but nothing special, etc. The art exists but its effect it's only about people. 
One song can be generally considered sad, depressing, happy... I think there's the possibility to create those emotions, to transpose them to the music. But a sad song doesn't mean that it makes an individual feeling sad. It can be _only _a sad song.
As an example Titanic song tells me nothing but its tone, melody, whatever, is sad.
*Elgarian *I dont understand what do you mean by "justified emotion". Justified? Our emotions are or are not "justified"? Oh well... there's something I dont get here.


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## Elaryad (Jul 29, 2008)

Thinking about it... what you are asking is that if those emotions are "justified" or not concerning what the composer meant?

If you were talking about 20th century plastic arts and contemporary artistic groups and criticism that question would be a blasphemy


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Elaryad said:


> I dont understand what do you mean by "justified emotion". Justified? Our emotions are or are not "justified"? Oh well... there's something I dont get here.


The phrase 'justified emotion' isn't mine - it was suggested by purple99 in the post before mine, and I was quoting him. What he says about grieving over the death of a family compared with grieving over the death of a hamster broadly explains what he meant.

What I don't understand (so I can't explain it) is how we determine what is 'justified emotion' in a work of art, though I'm inclined to believe that 'sentimentality' lies mostly in the eye of the beholder, or the ear of the listener. And when someone says that he finds the ending of _Suor Angelica_ sentimental, he's really talking more about himself, than about the music, and perhaps the real test lies in the degree to which he's been changed by the experience.

In other words, the _Titanic_ song may well be capable of eliciting either a sentimental response, or a profound response, depending on the listener, and how the listener is listening. If the listener doesn't properly engage with the song, is suspicious of the weepy emotions he's feeling, and is no richer at the end of the experience (apart from a residual flutter in the stomach), then what he just heard was 'sentimental'. On the other hand, if the song haunts him; if he keeps returning to it, listening intently, and realises that a permanent perceptive change has been brought about in him as a result, then he has had a profound experience, not a sentimental one. If this is correct (and I don't put it forward as anything other than a idea to be kicked around) then there _are_ no sentimental pieces of music. There are only sentimental _engagements_ with pieces of music.


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## Elaryad (Jul 29, 2008)

I'm sorry *Elgarian*, I didn't notice *purple99 *comment. But yes, some kind of emotions are justified because of some life experiences. So the focus is on "you" and not on the "other" (a painting, a song, etc.).

You're establishing a difference between someone who feels the music in the moment, who feels that's sad/profound, because the music provokes something indeed, but not for a long period of time.

On the other hand, there's that profound experience that take ages to leave your mind and emotions.

No, there are no sentimental pieces of music *Elgarian*, in my opinion you're so right. In semiotic terms music is nothing. That's another story but it's related with what you told.

If you could understand me in Portuguese we could establish a quite interesting conversation but my vocabulary/language limitations kills me. Your luck!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Elaryad said:


> You're establishing a difference between someone who feels the music in the moment, who feels that's sad/profound, because the music provokes something indeed, but not for a long period of time.


I think it's not so much the length of time involved that distinguishes the difference (though that does seem to be a factor), so much as the _type_ of change that occurs in the listener, and I think that may depend on our attitude to the music in the first place. If we approach the music in a receptive spirit, open to whatever new perceptions it may offer, then if the music is good enough, and if it succeeds in getting through to us, then we _grow_. We 'know', or 'see' something we never knew, or could see, before. Going back to _Suor Angelica_ - I am different now, after listening to it. I've 'seen' something, or 'felt' something that is completely outside my previous experience.

The sentimental experience isn't like that. In a sentimental engagement with a piece of music, we don't grow. We don't know or see anything afterwards that we didn't know before, because all the music did was conform to our preconceptions, and trigger an automatic response in us.



> If you could understand me in Portuguese we could establish a quite interesting conversation but my vocabulary/language limitations kills me.


Your English is infinitely better than my Portuguese! Thanks to that, we seem to be understanding each other pretty well.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I wasn't necessarily restricting the word 'critic' to someone who writes criticism professionally. We're all critics in the broadest sense - we all listen to music and talk about our responses to it. That's what I want to get at here, really. I'm thinking about the difference between person X who listens to _Suor Angelica_, shudders at what is perceived as mawkish religiosity, and declares it to be bad; and person Y who is profoundly moved by it, and declares it to be magnificent. I'm wondering where the line is.


I think that many people don't like to be confronted with their own vulnerability and the "softer" side of their personality. It's at odds with with the way they prefer to look at themselves - "tough guys" in control of their emotions, especially when it comes to the sugary ones. You see this (more and more actually) in popular music (rap, metal, ec) too where it's considered cool to sing that you're gonna bust somebody's skull and sentimental to sing that you love somebody. Even when they are in a romantic (read horny) mood they don't sing about how beautiful a girls' eyes are anymore but about the size and shape of her butt.

Actually - I think it says a lot about us as a species that we look upon art that is aimed at our softer side in such a negative manner while we seldom question art that illustrates our more negative character traits, because we ragard it as more truthfull. Obviously - sentimentality in music can potentially be so far over the top that it becomes ridiculous, but the same goes for, say, agression (as in some rap/metal).

I'm not really one to cry when I listen to a moving piece of music - I'm more the gooseflesh type. Having said that, I would love to be able to give Figaro's Countess a hug when she sings one of those two sad arias and I would definitely love to care of poor little Butterfly - so I think I have my heart in the right place.  Let's just say that I think that feelings of compassion, sympathy and/or tenderness are often confused with - or dismissed as sentimentality.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I suppose it comes down to deciding what is and isn't 'justified emotion' _in art_


I agree. But that's easy. You just ask the person experiencing the emotion to explain why. You then decide (a) if they're telling the truth and, if so, (b) whether their reasons are good ones, i.e. does the content of the piece justify the emotion - just like my hamster.

A useful test is hypocrisy. For example, the death of Little Nell in Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop" caused much sentimental weeping when it was published. Those same people dried their eyes, and stepped over the bodies of dying beggars on the streets of London when climbing into their carriages to visit their friends to tell them how much they wept over Little Nell. I'd argue that those who cannot or will not connect art to life are by definition experiencing highly suspect emotions when responding to art.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> I agree. But that's easy. You just ask the person experiencing the emotion to explain why. You then decide (a) if they're telling the truth and, if so, (b) whether their reasons are good ones


I'm glad we're agreeing that we agree - but I'm not convinced that it's as easy to make the distinction as you suggest. First, the person experiencing the emotion may be unable to explain why. That doesn't automatically mean it wasn't genuine - it may merely mean that they can't articulate it. (I'm conscious that all my attempts at explaining my response to the finale of _Suor Angelica_ fall short of being adequate, for example.) Second, it may not be clear whether they're telling the truth; they may not even be sure, themselves, whether they're telling the truth (eg. I'm not sure where the truth lies in my response to the _Titanic_ song). Third, your (b) ought to be the simplest part of the process, but it's entirely dependent on how 1 and 2 work out.



> I'd argue that those who cannot or will not connect art to life are by definition experiencing highly suspect emotions when responding to art.


That is such an incisive and brilliant observation that I feel almost as if I knew it already as something self-evident, though I don't think I did. At any rate, I've never seen it expressed it so succinctly or so clearly, and that single sentence of yours alone justifies my starting this thread, for me. Thank you!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

jhar26 said:


> I'm not really one to cry when I listen to a moving piece of music - I'm more the gooseflesh type. Having said that, I would love to be able to give Figaro's Countess a hug when she sings one of those two sad arias and I would definitely love to care of poor little Butterfly - so I think I have my heart in the right place.  Let's just say that I think that feelings of compassion, sympathy and/or tenderness are often confused with - or dismissed as sentimentality.


I've been turning this over for the last day or two, trying to decide whether there's a difference between the goosebump phenomenon and the tearjerker, and I think there is. Though the goosebumps experience may sometimes be accompanied by tears, they're different kinds of tears. It's not easy to pin down, but they fall into the category of tears of gratitude, perhaps; or of awe? Those kinds of tears are obviously not sentimental - I can recognise them very clearly, and I know where they fit, as it were. I don't think we'd ever suspect a straight goosebump experience to be a sentimental response, would we? It's invariably a response to greatness, of some kind, I think.

It's the sad tears that cause the difficulty: the weepy sympathy for the apparently tragic plight that may or may not be truly (one might even say, nobly) tragic. I'm still thinking.


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## Elaryad (Jul 29, 2008)

I was thinking about this subject, and about music that changes something in our lives, probably not a physical-something but a inner-something. And yes it happens. There are songs, pieces, movements, sonatas, whatever, that can _displace_ us from our actual place. I don't know if that place is spiritual, but it exists and represents something to us. Probably we are just talking indirectly about the essence of art for each one of us. And music provokes this individual happening (lacking a better word) on us on a very intimate/spiritual/even intellectual proportions.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Elaryad said:


> There are songs, pieces, movements, sonatas, whatever, that can _displace_ us from our actual place. I don't know if that place is spiritual, but it exists and represents something to us.


I think we're talking about the same thing, but expressing what's basically inexpressible in different ways. You speak of the music displacing us from our actual place, and I speak of windows opening, and experiencing new perceptions - whatever images we use, we're talking about a significant change being wrought upon us by the music.

I'm tempted to suggest that this might offer a useful test. If we have no memory of being _changed_ by a musical experience that made us cry - if, afterwards, we are just the same people as before, with no new insights, then our response might correctly be described as 'sentimental'.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Talk of music "displacing us from our actual place" and "opening windows of perception" isn't as hippy-dippy as it sounds. I used to play in a group which toured psychiatric hospitals and geriatric wards performing concerts for patients and staff. I witnessed numerous people with dementia, e.g. Alzheimer's, have strong reactions to music. One old woman with advanced Alzheimer's, who'd basically sat in a hospital chair for ten years peeing herself, got up and danced when we played a song which, it turned out, had been played at her wedding fifty years before. She'd forgotten everything else -- husband's face, grandchildren, what year it was, the power of speech -- but the music penetrated that fog and led her onto the dance floor. So music's a strong, little understood brain stimulus -- the most vigorous of all the arts -- and it doesn't surprise me at all when people report having profound music-related experiences.



Elaryad said:


> I was thinking about this subject, and about music that changes something in our lives, probably not a physical-something but a inner-something. And yes it happens. There are songs, pieces, movements, sonatas, whatever, that can _displace_ us from our actual place. I don't know if that place is spiritual, but it exists and represents something to us. Probably we are just talking indirectly about the essence of art for each one of us. And music provokes this individual happening (lacking a better word) on us on a very intimate/spiritual/even intellectual proportions.


It's all highly mysterious so one can't be dogmatic without looking a fool but I cling to the idea (with little evidence  ) that music effects our understanding of the relationship between things-as-they-are -- what Kant calls the 'noumenal' -- and our perceptions of what exists. As any first year philosophy undergraduate knows, the arguments of philosophical scepticism are strong and numerous philosophers, from Plato through Wittgenstein to the modern day, have tried to answer them. At root they seek to explain the nature of that relationship between noumena and phenomena. I think music's part of the explanation.


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## seems (Sep 9, 2008)

Criticism is a must I think because it will help a lot to improve. But its easy to say while facing is difficult I guess.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> I cling to the idea (with little evidence  ) that music effects our understanding of the relationship between things-as-they-are -- what Kant calls the 'noumenal' -- and our perceptions of what exists. As any first year philosophy undergraduate knows, the arguments of philosophical scepticism are strong and numerous philosophers, from Plato through Wittgenstein to the modern day, have tried to answer them. At root they seek to explain the nature of that relationship between noumena and phenomena. I think music's part of the explanation.


On a purely practical level this is self-evident, I think (and not just for music, but for all art). Certainly music has affected my relationship with, and understanding of, landscape, for as long as I can remember. In fact I had some interesting experiences of this sort just last week, wandering around Worcestershire and the Malvern Hills. At the top of May Hill I was watching a pair of what I think were sparrowhawks, flying together in quite complex ways, and after a few minutes of watching, I decided to listen to Vaughan Williams's Phantasy Quintet on my mp3 player, through earphones. The transformation of the movement of the hawks into what seemed like dancing was quite remarkable, and even after the music stopped I couldn't see their movement except as a kind of dance. It was as if there was a rhythm to their movement that I hadn't seen until I'd heard the music alongside the observation of their flight.

This is a very specific instance where the music connects the noumena and the phenomena simultaneously, but there are so many pieces of music that seem to bring meaning to a landscape. I simply can't walk the Malvern Hills, now, without 'hearing' Elgar - and that 'remembered music' heightens the sense of involvement with (and hence the meaning of) the landscape around me. Of course the philosophers may try to rationalise this away, but ultimately the only thing that really counts - indeed, it's one of the things that makes life worth living - is the personal experience: that is, the meaning here and now, as directly perceived by the listener, however impossible it may be to explain it in terms that might satisfy the philosopher.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Of course the philosophers may try to rationalise this away, but ultimately the only thing that really counts - indeed, it's one of the things that makes life worth living - is the personal experience: that is, the meaning here and now, as directly perceived by the listener, however impossible it may be to explain it in terms that might satisfy the philosopher.


Yes it just proves how subjective music is, what I see/feel upon hearing a certain piece of music will probably be entirely different to what you experience, I guarantee that when ever you hear that particular piece of VW you will see the sparrowhawks


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Andante said:


> I guarantee that when ever you hear that particular piece of VW you will see the sparrowhawks


"The Hawks Ascending"?


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> however impossible it may be to explain it in terms that might satisfy the philosopher.


Oh sure. Jolly old Wittgenstein would be the first to agree with you. He wrote a whole book on how it's impossible to talk sense about aesthetics -- Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> Oh sure. Jolly old Wittgenstein would be the first to agree with you. He wrote a whole book on how it's impossible to talk sense about aesthetics -- Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.


I think it probably really all comes down to a personal choice. The question in my 'hawk' experience is this: was the experience of watching them dance to RVW a genuine insight (as though the boundaries of the phenomenal were extending into the noumenal)? Or was it just (appropriate choice of word in this case) a phantasy - a daydream? It seems to me that all we can do is just choose one or the other. It's a matter of differing world views, rather than something that could be resolved by argument - which I suppose Wittgenstein would agree with?


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