# Beauty, sorrow, and anguish in music.



## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Inspired by a comment by Isola about Shostakovich in another thread, I wondered if this might be worth talking about - I mean, the paradox by which music can convey, all at the same time, 'beauty, sorrow, and anguish' (to quote Isola).

The best piece of writing I know on the subject isn't about music at all, but about poetry. No matter - the ideas are applicable to any art form. Here's Ted Hughes:

"It’s extremely difficult to write about the natural world without finding your subject matter turning ugly. In that direction, of course, lie the true poems: the great complete statements of the world, in its poetic aspect. I mean that catalogue of disasters and miseries, the Book of Job; or that unending cycle of killings and grief, The Iliad; or the great tragedies. What all those works have in common, of course, is not exactly a final upbeat note, but it is a peculiar kind of joy – a exultation. For that’s the paradox of the poetry, as if poetry were a biological, healing process. It seizes on what is depressing and destructive, and lifts it into a realm where it becomes healing and energising - or it tries to do. That is what it is always setting out to do. And to reach that final mood of release and elation, is the whole driving force of writing at all."

Now, I think what Hughes says here is brilliant and penetrating. I've experienced what he's talking about too often for me to disagree with him. My only reservation about the idea is that it doesn't always work. Sometimes (and I expect this varies from one individual to another), the poetry/art/music doesn't energise - it merely deepens the gloom. In cases like that there is no 'healing', as Hughes puts it; there's just more of the same despair that may have been hovering when I started out - so I feel worse at the end than I did at the beginning. That seems counterproductive - but of course (and here's the rub), there's no way of knowing beforehand how it's all going to turn out.....

Any thoughts?


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## kiwipolish (May 2, 2008)

Tragicalness is to music what spice is to fine cuisine. Use it sparingly.

Of course, we are all moved by contrasts between grief and serenity, and the resulting beauty. However, at the end of the day, you'll find that the smaller the contrasts, the finer the music.

I do love Shostakovich, Bruckner or Mahler; but how many of their symphonies can you listen to in a row? - I always end up with Mendelssohn ("Calm sea and prosperous voyage" - in defiance of all the Sturm und Drang!), Fauré or Bach's infinite perfection.


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

Elgarian, I wonder whether the insight that you share with Ted Hughes has a direct bearing on the subject of another thread here, being the nature of art. This may not define art, but it points us to one of its important facets.
Thanks.
Kiwipolish, I agree, and take your point further; music on a smaller scale does it for me, and it doesn't have to be Classical.


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## Isola (Mar 26, 2008)

Thanks for bringing up this interesting aesthetic topic, Elgarian. When I was reading it my speakers were blasting out Mahler 5th's heart-wrenching 2nd movt, which seemed to be echoing Ted Hughes' words in its own term (shamefully I've never read his poems). Indeed, poetry is the closest thing to music, except music transcends the limits of language thus it's the freest art form to convey such paradox. Forgot who said it: music starts where words stop.

I too can totally relate to what Ted Hughes said. I imagine the experience of composers/artists/poets must be much more intense than appreciators. Without that 'energizing' and 'healing', the tremendous depression could have destroyed Shostakovich (and some other maestros) early on in life. Personally I feel that since music processes and transforms emotions to a level of abstract and sublime, that beauty, sorrow and anguish I experienced from music often have not much to do with the composer's life, my life, anything earthy or explainable, just pure emotion. If there _is_ such a thing as 'pure emotion' it has to be built-in within us without having to base on experience of great loss and suffering, but only to be aroused by music or other art - to me, even though I appreciate literature and art, only classical music has such mysterious power. And I do feel energized and elevated, which I suppose is a healing process; which also often makes me feel the ups 'n' downs in personal life less significant and enable me to see life and the world in a more objective way. However, as Elgarian said, it's varies from one individual to another. After all, music is personal.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

I've not researched it properly so don't know if there's a scientific basis, but I've always thought of music as related to dreaming. If humans and some other mammals are prevented from dreaming they go mad, so dreams, in ways which are not fully understood, are necessary for mental health. Something happens when we dream which restores mental equilibrium, makes grief and heartache easier to deal with, unties emotional knots which consciously we were unaware of yet, if left tied, would cause us harm. Dreaming is a sort of re-booting mechanism which the human body has cleverly inserted between episodes of wakefulness.

Dreams notoriously contain that mix of "beauty, sorrow, and anguish" mentioned above, but necessarily so to enable their healing role to be fulfilled. I'm not suggesting that to be deprived of music causes mental harm, but music therapy is widely used as part of psychiatric treatments, implying that to be exposed to music can do some good. There's some research here on the subject, including a contribution from a philosopher mentioned before by Elgarian:



> An old Chinese proverb says: "Music comes from the heart of the human being. When emotions are born, they are expressed by sounds and when sounds are born they give birth to music". Actually this old proverb is telling the essence of music. According to philosopher Susan Langer (1951, 1953, 1967) music is expressing the forms of feelings which the individual is not able to express otherwise, such experiences which are not lingual and non-discursive, such as bodily rhythms and other experiences anchored to the early childhood of the individual as well as the unconscious and traumatic experiences.


It's important imo to keep in mind that the human brain consists of two main bits: the brain stem and our unique 'super-ape' cerebral cortex bolted, by evolution, on top. The higher 'rational' functions reside in the super-ape bit - maths, logic, science, speech etc - but our old fish/reptilian brain - the brain stem - is still there, injecting God knows what into the human psyche. I suggest -- with little evidence to back it up  -- that music has a role mediating between those two bits. So music's a bit like Heineken - it can reach those bits of human experience which language cannot.


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## Atabey (Oct 8, 2008)

To answer kiwipolish's question;I never liked Bruckner as much as i liked the other two,but i am able to listen to complete cycles by both Mahler and Shostakovich in one day.


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## kiwipolish (May 2, 2008)

Atabey said:


> i am able to listen to complete cycles by both Mahler and Shostakovich in one day.


 looooooong day


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Mark Harwood said:


> I wonder whether the insight that you share with Ted Hughes has a direct bearing on the subject of another thread here, being the nature of art. This may not define art, but it points us to one of its important facets.


Couldn't agree more, Mark - though it might help us to retain some sort of coherence to discuss this particular aspect in this separate thread, rather than over in the broader one. But yes, surely, we're talking about one of the central and most important characteristics of this thing called 'art'.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Isola said:


> Forgot who said it: music starts where words stop.


I think that's nearly true, though I'd add the visual arts to the music. But also, and even though it sounds daft, I'd say a lot of poetry does, too. I mean the kind of poetry that, when you hear it read aloud, makes no sense that you could unravel rationally, and yet takes you somewhere you could never have imagined: 'The eternal gates terrific porter lifted the northern bar'. I don't really know what Blake meant by that, but by golly it scares the daylights out of me. It plunges us into a world of symbols and archetypes beyond the realm of words, just like music can do, and as visual art can do - and I can't help but feel that it's in this contact with these structures that are normally below the level of our conscious selves that the answer lies - I mean the answer about how the arts can have the healing effect that they do, in the face of fear or other emotions that would normally be negative.

Something's just interrupted me - more to follow in due course....


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

"It seizes on what is depressing and destructive, and lifts it into a realm where it becomes healing and energising..." - Ted Hughes.
"...since music processes and transforms emotions to a level of abstract and sublime..." - Isola.

Oh yes.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Atabey said:


> To answer kiwipolish's question;I never liked Bruckner as much as i liked the other two,but i am able to listen to complete cycles by both Mahler and Shostakovich in one day.


Wait a minute... Mahler symphonies in themselves take 12 hours (13 with Das Lied) and the Shosty symphonies another 9-10, I think... sleep deprivation??? If those two sets even fit into one day, that is...


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Picking up from where I left off last night ....



Isola said:


> And I do feel energized and elevated, which I suppose is a healing process; which also often makes me feel the ups 'n' downs in personal life less significant and enable me to see life and the world in a more objective way.


I suppose one of the reasons for that may be that the music allows us to experience the 'personal ups and downs' of others in a different way, so that they become, in a sense, universal. I don't want to sound like a home-spun cliché-bound country philosopher, but if there's something in the idea of 'a trouble shared is a trouble halved', then being permitted, through music, to experience what seems to be _someone else's _trouble (though still very recognisably related to our own), may go some way towards alleviating the sense of isolation in adversity. We're no longer trapped in our own bubble of misery: there's someone else stranded in the bomb shelter that we can sing along with. (And if the other guy happens to be a genius then maybe things aren't so bad after all.)

I don't think this is by any means the whole story though.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> I've not researched it properly so don't know if there's a scientific basis, but I've always thought of music as related to dreaming.


I agree so much that I want to applaud. Ted Hughes saw his poetic role as shamanistic: the job of the poet (or musician) is to experience the world in ways that may be beyond most of us, but then use his art to communicate these visions to others. I think there's some mileage in that idea, of music giving us a means of entering into and experiencing different states of consciousness (as in dreaming) in a meaningful way.



> It's important imo to keep in mind that the human brain consists of two main bits: the brain stem and our unique 'super-ape' cerebral cortex bolted, by evolution, on top. The higher 'rational' functions reside in the super-ape bit - maths, logic, science, speech etc - but our old fish/reptilian brain - the brain stem - is still there, injecting God knows what into the human psyche. I suggest -- with little evidence to back it up  -- that music has a role mediating between those two bits.


Is this the same idea as the 'bicameral mind'? - I mean the idea of left-brain activity being related to rational thought, and right-brain activity being related to intuition? It sounds like it, though I don't know enough about the physiology. At any rate, the ability of music to bring together these two aspects of mental activity surely must be significant, as you say. We operate best when there's a balance between rational and intuitive thought - and of course, music requires such a balance if we're to listen to it effectively. So by stimulating both aspects of the mind, we get to see things in a broader perspective than we would if we were stuck in our own personal bubble of despair.

There remains some art, some music, though, that just leads me deeper into the pit. I'm not sure what's going on there.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Is this the same idea as the 'bicameral mind'? - I mean the idea of left-brain activity being related to rational thought, and right-brain activity being related to intuition?


No, it's a different theory. Here's the human brain:

View attachment 290


The stem lies buried beneath the thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus and consists of the midbrain, pons, and medulla. It's responsible for basic life functions such as breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, and God knows what else -- it's precise function is highly mysterious. Scientists claim it's the "simplest" part of the human brain because animals' entire brains, such as reptiles (who appear early on the evolutionary scale) resemble the human brain stem so, arguably, our brain stem is a left-over from our reptilian past. Note the size of the super-ape cerebral cortex bolted on top. No other animal has this. It's what makes us unique. How these bits of the human brain interact is, again, deeply mysterious.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> No, it's a different theory.


Many thanks for this. Yes, now you've explained the physiology, I see that it would be quite wrong to try to associate 'right brain activity' with the brain stem.

Although the bicameral mind concept is physically associated with left and right halves of the brain (on the grounds of what happens if the link between the two is severed), it's more useful to think of it as a rough-and-ready abstract concept, than as a theory tied in to a particular physiological model. But right-brain 'intuition' clearly is something quite different to what you're suggesting the brain stem may be responsible for.

I'm not sure whether it's helpful - but do you (or anyone else) have any suggestion about where, if anywhere, Jung's 'collective unconscious' could be residing? I've always thought that was a useful concept (insofar as I understand it, which isn't far) in terms of explaining the healing/energising power of art. Are we talking brain stem, there? It doesn't seem to fit, quite, unless dinosaurs, unbeknown to us, enjoyed enormous quantities of 'collective unconscious' activity.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> do you (or anyone else) have any suggestion about where, if anywhere, Jung's 'collective unconscious' could be residing?


The short answer is 'I don't know.'  Hopefully, someone else will.



Elgarian said:


> I've always thought that was a useful concept (insofar as I understand it, which isn't far) in terms of explaining the healing/energising power of art. Are we talking brain stem, there?


Again I'm not sure, but no one is. More is known about the surface of the moon than the human brain. A theory I read about at university and had explained to me by a neuropsychologist perhaps has a bearing. The theory runs that when human evolution occurred and the big super-ape cerebral cortex was bolted on top of Neanderthal brain, while we gained many things -- language, maths, logic, science, self-awareness in time and space -- the cerebral cortex has a masking effect: things which Neanderthal perceived or knew consciously, we know only sub-consciously. We still have the Neanderthal superstructure -- beneath the super-ape bit -- but it's no longer primary. It's buried but still active and that causes lots of problems. It's a sort of ghost in the machine. The theory goes on to claim that it's only in dreams, or when under the influence of drugs, or when exposed to art, or in a psychiatric crisis, that we regain access to that primary bit of ourselves; that as conscious beings we are alienated from who we are in normal everyday life yet certain stimuli -- art being one of them -- can reunite us with our roots. If true it's an attractive theory because it provides a concrete, physiological explanation for some profound human problems and mysteries. The operative word is 'if'!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

purple99 said:


> We still have the Neanderthal superstructure -- beneath the super-ape bit -- but it's no longer primary. It's buried but still active and that causes lots of problems. It's a sort of ghost in the machine. The theory goes on to claim that it's only in dreams, or when under the influence of drugs, or when exposed to art, or in a psychiatric crisis, that we regain access to that primary bit of ourselves; that as conscious beings we are alienated from who we are in normal everyday life yet certain stimuli -- art being one of them -- can reunite us with our roots. If true it's an attractive theory because it provides a concrete, physiological explanation for some profound human problems and mysteries. The operative word is 'if'!


Much of what you say there does sound rather like the kind of stuff Jung might have associated with the collective unconscious. The archetypal images and symbols we encounter in art, in shamanistic practices, in prehistoric rock art, and in dreams, or in unusual states of consciousness - it's an interesting idea to think they might be associated with brain stem activity. A sort of psychic lowest common denominator, with all rational activity stripped away. Why entering into such a state might promote psychic healing of some kind (a la Ted Hughes) is another matter, of course - I'd need to read more Jung whom, alas, I often find impenetrable.

[I feel uneasy about the idea of the brain stem theory providing an 'explanation' for those profound human mysteries. I'm not sure that an association between a certain kind of physical brain activity and the perceived experience of profundity means that one 'explains' the other. But that would take us somewhere that would smash this thread into a thousand pieces, so I won't go there.]


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

kiwipolish said:


> I do love Shostakovich, Bruckner or Mahler; but how many of their symphonies can you listen to in a row? - I always end up with Mendelssohn ("Calm sea and prosperous voyage" - in defiance of all the Sturm und Drang!), Fauré or Bach's infinite perfection.


Yes, yes. The truth is that, just like you, most of the time I don't seek out music that will lead me into the pit and (hopefully) back out again. I can only cope with so much gloomy art - and that's not all that much, frankly. Life itself is full of conflict and anguish, and often I deliberately seek out music (or any other art) not as psychic medicine (where the cure may be as painful as the disease), but as _escape_ from all that. Or at least, to enter into an art-centred state where the conflict is under control, with a guaranteed positive outcome.


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## Isola (Mar 26, 2008)

Elgarian and purple99: enjoy your posts, thanks.


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