Appendix: 1 – Musical Language – An introduction to a possible interpretation
1.1 – Understanding music
Music is said to be the most exhaustive and complex of all the arts. It has more colours and chromatic shades than painting, greater plasticity, concreteness and ability to express reality than sculpture, much greater capacity for analysis and explanation of emotions, psychological situations, individual and collective dramas than literature. In short, music appears to include, realize and transcend all the other arts. But while the particular language of the other arts is more or less codified and the techniques used for their expression circumscribed, with music the situation is quite different. Noise or single sounds are not “art”, as features of painting such as a single line drawn by Picasso can be, or elements of sculpture or poetry, such as an “unfinished” rough outline by Michelangelo or Wordsworth’s “The child is father of the man”.
With music, unlike the other examples mentioned, sounds need coherent logical sequences; they need to be “composed”, shaped into an artistic form, so as not to remain a mere string of noises.
The great European composers, especially, gradually developed an ever more complex expressive language deriving from the progress of “musical science” at their hands. They were not producing single sounds (even though rhythmic) but linear sequences (i.e. tunes), and then vertical intersections of lines of sound (harmony), following scientific principles from the post-Gregorian chant period to Bach’s “Well-tempered Clavier”, to the daring innovations of Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, the scales without semitones of the Impressionists, atonalism, dodecaphony, the sequential sonorities of Stockhausen, present day computer music etc. with all possible variations.
One could only speak of “art” when a level of expressiveness had been reached sufficient to communicate “something” immense and universal (we shall see later what) to a large audience able to recognize collectively the unmistakable singularity of their perception of that “something”.
Communicating “something” was much easier for the other arts, since human minds were already programmed to understand it, at least as long as art went hand in hand with the language of nature. Michelangelo sculptured his “David” and communicates “something” to us, which is an unattainable synthesis of strength, calm and balance. But his path was facilitated since our minds already contain the formal and content features of the language used (the human body in those different attitudes). It was just (!) a question of being able to practise and communicate true art. Likewise, a great literary work, including poetry, is understood because from childhood we learn words corresponding to the realities of life, and then learn how to combine them, working out concepts and sentences. All that is required at this point is the “uniqueness” of art.
The same is not true for music, since the above mentioned real, natural references needed for understanding appear to be missing. This also happens in the other arts, when they turn to abstract language from various levels of realism. Music has always been “abstract” from its very beginning!
A number of philosophers, musicologists, psychologists and music sociologists have attempted to analyze the message of music in different times and places, its causes and effects, with varying results, not always aiding comprehension.
Arguably the biggest mistake, made even by the most eminent scholars, was trying to apply theories and values considered permanent and absolute to music in all periods. Music of a particular period needs perhaps theories and methods peculiar to that time. Aesthetic canons are relative, even though no one can stop us from applying different aesthetic canons to the same work of art. We can always make “a posteriori” comparisons of the quality and quantity of comprehension supplied by each one of them.
This viewpoint is no doubt a historicist one. However, though attaching great value to the “pure moment” as our only reference point moment by moment, we still cannot ignore “memory” (especially since it is a constituent part of of the genetics of the human race) and also comparison between various “memories” i.e. history.
Modern theoretical physics operates in a similar way, when scientists work out theories partially able to explain the composition of matter and predict which and how many elementary particles can originate from a particular collision which took place at a particular energy. Each theory is valid for a particular energy band, within certain limits. A theory is certainly more valid (for this reason attracting more agreement, perhaps even a Nobel Prize, and a large number of further experiments), if it manages to cover a wide energy band and satisfactorily explain the origin of a great number of particles. Since, as the years go by, history (and science with it) progresses, we are able to develop instruments capable of increasing collision energy and thus widen the energy band. Sooner or later every theory will be put to the test by a reality which “grows tired” of it and abandons it. This is when a new scientist is required to work out a new theory and so on.
Still, there is nothing to stop us from applying different theories to the same phenomenon and see how they behave as far as comparison between experimental results and the exactitude and coverage of forecasts are concerned. Evaluation of their behaviour will give us an idea of the scientific importance of each theory.
To return to music, another mistake made by musicologists was to try and explain music starting from music rather than man (as though we were dealing with a phenomenon created by Martians for our entertainment!) and hardly ever having objectively analyzed the preconditions for individual perception of that “something” already referred to. Actually, all reality created by man and all analysis of human phenomena cannot leave man out. To avoid this mistake, man’s mental make-up must not be neglected. We must turn to the knowledge possessed by modern science about the human brain and the modalities of reception and memorization of individual perceptive elements due to cellular physiology and biophysical and biochemical interactions which determine them. The process of musical formation is thus intermingled with the very essence of the human learning mechanism, so that no serious critical analysis can ignore it.
1.2 – Learning music
Hearing is the sense programmed for the transmission of sound to the brain which will synthesize and memorize the musical message, before sending it on to the mind, whose function is to perceive the “something”. Without hearing, sounds cannot be picked up and put to use, and hearing should be good for good message transmission quality. Similarly, it is impossible to appreciate painting without sight, and sight must also be good, since someone who is colour blind certainly does not transmit a good visual message to the brain, at least from the point of view of the individual’s talent for artistic elaboration and evaluation.
Admittedly Beethoven was almost deaf, but he reached this stage when his mind had subjected his brain to synthesis and memorization of musical messages which could also come from the sight and analysis of a score rather than from a performance. On the other hand, the music elaborated in his mind and perceived within it, could, through the above mentioned subjection, turn into a written out score, without the help of a piano.
But is the mind sufficient to formulate and understand a musical message?
Man is certainly not only his mind. Though the mind is situated in the highest and deepest part of the brain (probably in the cerebral cortex) and uses it to receive a synthesis of reality impinging on it, and transform it into perceptions, this does not mean that it is oblivious to the messages from the rest of the body and that it does not interact with them.
The mind does in fact interact with the rest of the body so as to receive and synthesize the messages received through the various senses. We could even say that the mind expands downwards, over the various parts of the human body that are touched by the emotion that has struck them. The heart (or the (4) ancients’ precordia), the other viscera, the sexual organs can transmit emotional messages and sensations to the mind so that they be synthesized and stored in memory; the mind, then can be the seat of “pure” thought when it elaborates and synthesizes messages directly. It can be the seat of “impure” thought when it does not elaborate and synthesize messages directly, but through the above mentioned organs.
The intelligent mind, the seat of autonomous elaboration has always been directly connected to man’s spirit (5), while the mind engaged in the elaboration of “corporeal” messages coming from various organs, has been connected with man’s soul. It has also been said that the consciousness of one’s existence can also be attributed to the soul together with the various sensations elaborated and synthesized by the mind. Self-consciousness is attributed to the spirit-soul complex.
It is important to have made the above point, because we shall relate the perception of that “something” (which is musical discourse for us) to the human spirit and human soul, rather than with the mind and precordia. All this is independent of whether the spirit and the soul are considered immortal or not, which is nothing to do with reason.
At this point a few remarks are necessary on musical language: the “musical words” or “groups of words” needed to express a musical concept. The set of concepts (see Webern) will make up musical discourse or a musical thought which only the mind can elaborate (and then will regard the spirit) or it can be elaborated by the mind-precordia complex (then it will be of interest to the soul).
How can a musical note played by an instrument or a group of notes become first a musical concept and then musical discourse and be subsequently expressed, recorded and understood? We do not mean learning a musical sequence by heart, which can easily be done by a parrot, but understanding what the sequence means, especially when its aim is to transmit a message from the composer.
1.3 – Archetypes
For both the creation and understanding of music, the deep consciousness of the mind or the mind-precordia complex should already have received specific archetypes (6) which are gradually called up to consciousness in the course of composition, performance, or listening. This is how the group of archetypes brought to consciousness during the listening process by the groups of notes representing them, and which the composer placed in a logical order, make up true concepts and can be directly related to musical discourse in the score. Only in this way can the musical discourse (which is the concrete expression of a musical thought) be understood and supply unambiguous mental and physical sensations to the spirit-soul-body complex (the I) which will be able to recognize it again, compare it with others etc.; in a word, turn it into an object of culture.
Musical discourse is not only made up of archetypes, but also, and above all of “mental reworkings of archetypes”, that we conceive as parts of musical thought developing the archetype (or group of archetypes) evoked, using sequences, even repeated ones, of pure rhythmic archetypes containing their own notes, preferably alternating with other correlated ones. Furthermore, one cannot entirely exclude the possibility of musical elaborations without archetypes thought up to supplement a musical phrase;
What are archetypes? How are they formed, introduced, identified, transmitted? If we admit that man’s brain is virgin at the start, there is no doubt that it can record basic impulses from both from inside and outside the body. The physiology of the brain confirms that the cells of some cerebral areas when subjected to external neurostimuli undergo a permanent structural change capable of memorizing the impulse received. For example, the heartbeat is perhaps the first stimulus (or archetype) of rhythm and time scansion the brain acquires from within. In a similar way breathings are also a rhythmic element, though slightly different, since their length varies and can be controlled within certain limits, and establishes the first contact with the outside. The new born baby’s cry couples rhythm and sound elements and so on. While the genetic task of the brain is to preside over these functions, it also records them in memory since, later, the mind can become aware of them and make them a tool of language. We could go on much longer listing these primary sensations or archetypes, and perhaps we should make a distinction between formal archetypes, such as a bright light, a line, a mathematical or geometrical element, and substantial archetypes such as a painful physical stimulus or a pang of hunger. In any case, archetypes cannot be related to other realities. For example, the emotional archetype could appear to be structured by other rhythmic (or onomatopoeic-rhythmic) archetypes with vibrations (notes or sounds). Actually we think of it as an emotion made up of a clot of inseparable (and also typical and unique) rhythms and vibrations. It is after birth that the relationship between mind and inner and outer sensations is built up in relation to the initial perception of archetypes and their reworkings. Man will make use of all this for building up understanding (including musical understanding) of reality and his communication with other human beings. It may be the case that the archetypes acquired and memorized so far can affect any sense, and not only the one that appears to have generated them, becoming perceivable by the spirit-soul complex in a global fashion. For example, a geometrical line, which would appear to be generated by sight, can become a musical line. At this point the extent to which an archetype can be universal (7) needs to be examined and to what extent this characteristic can be due to a subsequent mental reworking of concepts by different archetypes and moved by analogy from one sector of human knowledge to another.
It can also be posited that a genetic code of archetypes exists. this would make them acquirable by reality and that, as others are elaborated, on the basis of ever more sophisticated capacities for reception, in the course of human development, is continually updated so as to allow even the new ones to be acquired by the following generations. It could also be posited that there is a kind of universal memory of archetypes and their combinations in forms of ever increasing complexity, where the mind, this time through the unconscious, takes its pick, making them re-emerge in the individual consciousness as it develops. Present day archetypes are certainly the same for everybody, even though the ability to combine them and elaborate a message differs from individual to individual.
To endow an individual with the whole range of human perceptions (including musical ones), is it enough to formulate the existence of a large number of archetypes inserted into the mind (or recoverable through the unconscious, as we mentioned before)? Is a conscious conceptual reworking of these absolutely necessary carried out by the mind and mind-precordia complex? The answer is not easy, and perhaps goes beyond the limits of this brief treatment. Nevertheless, the mental concepts of gentleness, tenderness, love in its various senses, solemnity, strength, brutality, irony etc. need to be experienced in the precordia so as to be perceived in their entirety. This is why we believe they derive from archetypes. It would be wonderful if we could discover that the gentleness archetype was transmitted by a mother’s first tender gaze at her baby and not through a conceptual reworking! It would also be nice to think that our mind offered our soul a flowered meadow of archetypes and that, smelling, mixing and recognizing the various scents, the correct flowers would be selected. To return to music, the composer certainly introduces a message (originating in the imaginative reworking of his own archetypes), with modalities that should also be known to the receiver. It is through mental reworking that the melodic-harmonious context is created, in which the archetypes are inserted, so as to give a logical-rational sense to the whole musical thought based on them and develop a musical discourse that represents it efficiently, in a logical-formal sequence that can be perceived by the listener. Apart from man, do animals have their own archetypes, and are they conscious of this ? Presumably yes, though they are not capable of “artistic messages”. They are not self-conscious and are not conscious of having archetypes at all. We believe that music (like life) is for man a succession of arranged situations interpreted by a musical thought, together with the emotions of the soul and vibrations of the body. The archetype is a self structured finite element frozen, perceived and evoked by the deep consciousness of the I to assimilate and describe in embryo each situation in sequence, to be analyzed and rationalized and, through mental reworking translated into (musical) language, then “thawed” and spread throughout the (musical) thought expressed.
1.4-Identification of archetype classes
Accessible fundamental archetypes are the same for everybody. This is because the primary stimuli felt by elementary memory and the way they are taken up are the same for everybody. The question remains whether, during human evolution, others can be added or whether they are modified (by genetic mutation?) and supplemented, adding new more “universal” modalities to the primary structure in the brain cells allowing further progress in their grouping together, which the mind, or mind-precordia, will develop in the subsequent artistic process.
Another question is whether there are simple and composite archetypes. It is certainly possible that unconscious mental reworking of simple archetypes can become a “composite archetype” (a self structured logical, congruent set of archetypes which lose their individuality but preserve a certain “participating” identity) and take on an unalterable, incisive typical and expressive character. But while the basic archetype is the same for everybody, the composite one can change from person to person, in accordance with individual potentiality for constructing archetypes. It is certainly true that understanding music made up of composite archetypes is more difficult, and depends on the fact that the listener already has these archetypes, or composite archetypes that are similar enough to lead him to sufficient understanding of the composer’s meaning.
There are also “expanded” archetypes. The mind takes hold of the basic archetype evoked and instead of inserting it into the composition as it stands and even make variations, it expands it until it covers a whole thematic form. Can this structure be turned into an archetype and become an expanded archetype? If this were possible, it would not be so easy to distinguish it from reworking;
We shall now attempt to list the archetypes we believe are situated in the memory of deep mental consciousness, with the proviso that this research is in its early stages and needs to be carried on by experts in the field.
Let us begin with what we term “structural archetypes”, since they have an essential function in the logic of musical discourse. They lie behind the structure of any elementary phrase, and often mental reworkings are none other than “expansions” of structural archetypes. It should be pointed out, however, that every other archetype seems to have the possibility of being broken up into structural, emotional, onomatopoeic etc. features. This is not the case, in fact. Single archetypes cannot be broken up into elements, just as a drop of water breaking up into other drops cannot be considered “structured” by those other drops.
The fundamental archetype in this category is of the numerical type: I = 1; I and my mother = 2 and so on. This is also true of the rhythm of the heartbeat, which includes number, sound and rhythm. It is a structured archetype, though still “one” basic archetype, picked up by the embryonal mind at the moment of the first beat of a tiny heart. The rhythm of heartbeats also concerns the calm archetype in normal conditions made up of more than one heartbeat), and the anxiety archetype (a speeded up heartbeat due to fear or anxiety). Breathing is also turned into an archetype, in its variability and exchange modalities with the exterior. The same is also true of the new born baby’s first (rhythm-sound-sense) whimper, which can contain both sobbing and steady weeping.
As they arrive, the five senses determine light, sound, smell, taste and touch archetypes.
The first song heard, such as a lullaby, or the first bell enter the archetypal sphere.
Height and depth archetypes come with the first contact with the sense of gravity, perhaps from the first glance at the sky or down an abyss. The composite ascent and descent archetypes are associated with them. They are crucial for music, since they are closely related to rising and falling musical phrases.
The doubt archetype may well originate in the first uncertainty in life. A brief sequence of notes “turning back on themselves” and at a distance of a semi-tone, or at most a tone, can be relevant here (this depends on the need to lean on what is nearest in moments of doubt).
Curiosity will lead to the first question, or question mark archetype and its associate answer or exclamation mark archetype. The question archetype is very similar to the doubt archetype from which it differs, however, in the fact that the notes turning back on themselves can be at a distance of two or more tones. Frequently a question archetype can be found in music immediately followed by an answer archetype. Do they make up a single composite archetype? The question, which nearly always expresses a doubt will have notes separated by a tone or semi-tone. The answer, if it is doubtful or evasive, will also separate the notes by a tone or semi-tone. Otherwise, if the answer is sure, the distance can increase to two or three tones (with no need for the “immediate neighbour”).
The emotional archetypes also require definition. The first pain, or even the first caress or touch on the skin certainly originate the first and fundamental feelings of pain, happiness, well being, laughter etc., both in body and soul. Thus we have “states of mind” as mind-precodia reworkings of emotional archetypes.
As the mind develops behaviour archetypes arrive, such as a sense of duty and the first rules to follow. Music takes up emotional and composite archetypes, if they exist (though they be difficult to separate from reworkings).
We also have onomatopoeic archetypes placed in the human mind by human and natural situations; These are connected with music that imitates nature (thunder, horses hooves, marches, trumpet calls etc.).
We could also hypothesize a “silence archetype” which should coincide with the “absence of archetype” archetype.
Again, we should point out that further research is needed.
1.5 – Identification of archetypes
Identification of archetypes should not be a difficult task for modern neurophysiology. It is a question of carrying out a cerebral analysis on a subject with an electro-encephalograph or other apparatus capable of measuring his/her reaction to deep stimuli, and subject him/her to a basic neutral stimulation with, at intervals, a series of “primary” sound and light stimuli, like those described above, measuring the intensity of individual reaction both in basic conditions and during stimuli. We should be able to find archetypes from the wave shape in resonance conditions, corresponding to wave peaks. Analysis may need to be carried out under hypnosis, and special care must be taken with what stimuli the subject receives, seeing that we must separate the response given in the presence of an archetype from responses to superficial “peripheral” sensory stimuli. Subsequently the subject needs to be given the same deep stimuli musically “mimed” i.e. reproduced by musical instruments. If the archetype is universal, we should have the same response. Research should continue with comparison of results on a series of subjects, so as to analyze the conformity of wave peaks provoked by the same archetypes and show whether there are different responses as far as intensity or wave shape are concerned. Specialists will certainly be able to perfect methods with the necessary scientific rigor.
1.6 – Archetypes and music
As has already been pointed out, in music each archetype is made up of one or more equal or different notes (in a self defined group) which can be placed in sequences that are built up in a similar way to logical-mathematical archetypes.
In certain cases a set of sequences can even become – if it has the potentiality – a “composite archetype” (and stay buried in the memory of deep consciousness). Otherwise it can simply be subjected to a greater melodic-harmonic discursive structuring (mental reworking) by the composer, influenced, above all by his character and cultural make up. Certainly, it is very probable that a musical discourse made up almost entirely of simple and composite archetypes assembled by a meagre but brilliant reworking component, can come out as qualitatively and artistically superior to discourse made up of few fundamental archetypes, which are amply structured and discursively reworked by the composer’s mind. This second possibility on occasion encounters listeners’ approval. This is what happens with the various forms of modern rock music.
If we want to analyze the birth of archetypes in greater detail, certain questions come to the fore. Are single musical notes, even those taken from among natural sounds, single archetypes? Is the generic “sound” archetype subsequently clothed by sounds of different height (or frequency) and timbre? Is silence an archetype? Does the “archetype of silence” exist? Does it coincide with the “absence of archetypes”? Does the “background noise” archetype exist?
An archetype is not in itself polyphonic, tonal, atonal, serial, or dodecaphonic. However, during composition, a group of chords can originate from the summoning up of archetypes derived from natural sounds. Now, even sounds emitted by instruments produced by human inventiveness can originate chords. It can be widely hypothesized that the archetypes evoked in the mind by listening to such artificial chords are the same as the previous ones. It should be kept in mind that musical instruments were born as a reality determined by human archetypes, whose structure they mime: the violin and strings the breathing archetype (which becomes a human voice in the cello), the wind instruments the various “voices” (including those of animals) of nature, the percussion instruments the archetypes of rhythmic and non-rhythmic noise (heart, thunder etc.). Man has, as it were, reinvented them unconsciously, because he needed that type of summons, their evocative power, to listen again to and newly express his archetypes. Certainly, instruments have their own essence, their own voice coming from a brilliant technological reworking of the material of which they consist, which will always be different from the voice of an archetype expressed by the deepest consciousness with inner mechanisms, inside the mind-precordia set up, and not outside, like the sound of an instrument.
Another question concerns the chords of sounds when they are placed in a relationship with sensations of calm and sadness, as happens with major and minor chords respectively. Are these chords archetypal?
The fact that keys based on minor chords give rise to states of mind of heart rending sadness certainly has a biochemical, organic basis, which is not unlike that which sees cows give more milk if they are stimulated by music that has already been tried out.
Admittedly, the scientific modalities of the mind’s groupings of archetypes are still a mystery as is their transfer by imagination to artistic levels quite distinct from real ones. But perhaps the spirit-soul complex, at the moment of artistic (musical) ecstasy, both during creation and listening, experiences its own reality. Our living in our bodies and for our bodies, forcing even the soul (if not the spirit) to submit to this life, makes us forget it all too often.
Eggebrecht stated that music is emotion, the science of mathematics, time i.e. “emotion subject to mathematics in its own time”. Actually, during the creation of a musical composition, the mind-precordia complex supplies emotion, searching among the emotional archetypes. While the mind, elaborating the numerical and rhythmic archetypes with mathematical criteria supplies the logical basis of the harmonic-melodic discourse which proceeds in its own time, independent of the time of individual existence. On the other hand, during listening, the musical work acts on the listener globally. It usually needs to be heard several times so as to allow the listener to identify the various elements of its make up, be they melodic, harmonic, rhythmic or temporal. Subsequently each element is related to the listener’s archetypes, and once the musical discourse and its logic have been acquired, the composition is “understood”; The differences between the message sent by the composer and that received by the listener, if we exclude the particulars introduced by the performer, depend solely on the individual modalities of archetype reworking, which can be influenced by the listener’s educational level and the time in which he/she lives.
We can ask ourselves how a work of art is born. We believe that its birth is common to all artistic forms. A deep vision, a “big bang” explodes in the artist’s spirit, resounds in his soul, clashes with his body, provoking global reactions evoking the relevant logical-mathematical, emotional etc. archetypes in the mind-precordia complex. The mind takes hold of them immediately, giving them a semblance of order, with subsequent reworking , to which the artist’s cultural make up contributes decisively. At this point the work of art pours forth: music from the musician, painting from the painter, sculpture from the sculptor and so on. We see the archetype as a “universal element” with facets corresponding to the various artistic languages. We could ask ourselves whether archetypes are the basis of the normal language of communication between human beings. Our answer is “no”, seeing that common language has been taught and learned using cerebral-rational standardized and codified reworkings, whose roots lie in the archetypes but which make up a kind of stratum, a sedimentation separating deep consciousness (the seat of the archetypes) from the mind that is to express the normal, basic concepts of human language. When does human language become a work of art in its various forms? When does a work of art become “Art”? We believe this happens when the deep archetypal forms, evoked by the “big bang”, spontaneously emerge, are placed in a unique sequence and reworked according to original patterns which create culture and above all “dependence on future cultural directions”. Do high aesthetic levels and the search for the beautiful belong to a true work of art? The subjective and relative nature of such concepts and their variability over time allow us to use them only as initial elements of analysis and comparison between several works of art, whose greatness, as has already been said, will only be measured subsequently, by influence on the period in question and the duration of effect on users, who will need to be culturally renewed.
Can a work of art be born without direct involvement of archetypes? Sections of language detached from each other are possible so as to make up sets of noises, colours, sounds and words “without common sense” though present and reproducible. The human mind may create specific reworkings deriving from mathematical rules created by it. In music dodecaphony proves this, and many of Webern’s works appear to derive solely from mental elaborations of sound, rhythm and silence, even though they could be hiding as yet unidentified archetypes. Certainly, emotion is more distant, only appearing to be “awe” provoked by the mixture of sounds, almost as if it were no longer part of the language proper to the musical thought expressed.
1.7 – Examples of musical translations of archetypes
Vital archetypes:
Breathing archetype: aa-aa-ae-ee (breathing in)
ee-ea-aa-aa (breathing out).
This is one of the most difficult archetypes to identify: breathing as well as the heart are essential for life and they certainly supply archetypes, but musical translation, considering the variability controlled by breathing, is extremely difficult. As far as finding these archetypes in musical compositions is concerned, the difficulty consists of the fact that there is no clear duration or length. Breathing can be ample, drawn out, but also short and panting. Its duration then can cover an entire musical phrase or just a few bars. Since it is made up of two parts (almost a question-answer logic) even partial uses can be expected (simple breathing in=”life and waiting”; simple breathing out=conclusion and death). “Breathing spaces” are part of musical language and the reference to this archetype is clear.
Heart beat archetype: we prefer to include it among the emotional archetypes (see: calm and anxiety).
Emotional archetypes:
Sobbing archetype: tà-tatà-tatà.
Steady weeping archetype: taàa-taàa.
For a new born baby crying may simply be a physiological need, without further implications, at least in the early stages. But with the adult this is caused by deep rooted emotions associated with pain or sadness. In the latter case it can become the expanded sadness archetype (tàatatàa). Then it is dissolved into generalized sadness, and, by means of mental reworkings (with the harmonic intervention of minor keys and necessary chromatic passages), can fill a musical thought. It should be pointed out that crying can be caused by pain, but also by anger or joy. These sensations will be communicated by reworkings and, especially, the musical context. The weeping archetype usually consists of the same note repeated three times, the second and third possibly differing by a semi-tone, or, at most, a tone (cf. the different kinds of crying of a few months’ old baby). Examples: Grieg, Peer Gynt, 2nd. theme from Solvejg’s Song (sobbing); Beethoven, 3rd. Symphony (Eroica), Funeral March (reworking in solemn sadness); Dvorak, Slavonic Dance n. 10 in E flat (an interesting example of expanded archetype).
Inescapability archetype: tata-tàa or tatata-tàa. Impressed in the mind when first seeing somebody’s or something’s “prolonged fall” (ending on the last note). It is characterized by a feeling of inability to change what is happening. Example: Beethoven, 5th. Symphony (beginning).
The first three notes are generally the same, but can be reworked to vary or dilute the message.
Gentleness (or tenderness) archetype: tàa. This is the first caress, the first gentle call from a mother, with a possible answer. The two notes generally differ by a semi-tone, the first note being higher than the second. Gentleness can be “more bitter” since its aim is to obtain something. Thus the notes can be one tone apart.
Doubt archetype: ta-ti-ta.
Calm archetype: ta-tà, ta-tà, ta-tà.
(this is the normal heart beat)
Anxiety (or fear) archetype: tattà-tattà-tattà.
(a quick heart beat)
Terror archetype: taaàa. The first fright, probably due to a drawn out scream.
Strength archetype: tàaa. The same note repeated several times vigorously by an appropriate instrument (cf. onomatopoeic archetypes). Specific reworkings also use different notes. Sometimes associated with a sense of solemnity (archetype or reworking?) which can be particularly religiously grave (religious feeling) or non religious (triumphant or other type). Examples: Brahms, 4th. Symphony (beginning of 2nd. movement); Handel, Music for the Royal Fireworks (beginning).
Structural Archetypes: numerical and logical
The musical translation of numerical archetypes is present in rhythm coupled with a sequence of notes: repeated unitary archetype (I = 1);
it is a note repeated with a constant cadenza.
Binary archetype (I and my mother = 2);
it is a repeated pair of notes.
Triple and quadruple archetypes;
it is a triplet and quadruplet repeated, and so on.
Height (ascent) and depth (descent) archetypes: parts of ascending and descending musical scales, whose speed is not given by the performing tempo but by the distance of the notes (a semi-tone, a tone, more than one tone).
Logical archetypes: question and question-answer made up of a group (two groups) of notes turning back on themselves and generally ending on a note which is the same as the initial one. Example: Dvorak, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (beginning of first movement).
We could give many more examples. A systematic, definitive survey needs to be carried out by musicologists and psychologists of music, so as to be able to identify the musical translation of archetypes. Subsequently, experts from biological physics, neuro-computer studies, neurology, can research correspondences at the encephalic level.
2 – Musical Elaboration and its Development from the Archetypal Viewpoint
2.1 – History
Here we shall take a brief look at the historical development of musical elaboration from the beginnings up to the present.
Let’s begin with Orpheus and his lyre. Music becomes a myth and esoteric mystery. Orpheus strokes the strings and makes them vibrate, like a god with the columns of his own temple…In archaic Greece there were no signs of musical elaboration up to Pythagoras, who posited “associating music with numerical relations innate in the harmony of the Universe” or Plato for whom music was the interrelated elements of harmonia-rhytmos-logos. If logos is sustained by the “World of Ideas” (or as we prefer, by “universal memory”), archetypes could almost be thought of as deriving from this source. We know little of ancient Roman music and Japanese, Chinese or Indian music are too far from our culture. Even if archetypes are identical over time and space (apart from their possible “development” as already mentioned) elaborations have certainly been different, since there have been different approaches to post-perceptive emotional and logical problems.
European music really begins with Gregorian chant, which found inspiration in the deepest Christian spirituality. Archetypes are thin on the ground; correspondence is perhaps sought between external sonorities within church walls and sonorities within the soul to be transformed into mystical exaltation.
After the Gregorian period we have post-Gregorian music, the music of the Troubadours, thirteenth and fourteenth century court music. The spirit is not the only musical referent and the first emotional musical archetypes appear together with the beginning of amalgamations of material and spiritual realities, while the logical, rational element linking the different musical moments is still extremely simple and unstructured.
The snare of the mind arrives with Johann Sebastian Bach. Here we have structuring of musical discourse, a search for the logic of musical language (but including certain emotional elements) and the codification of harmonic elements in the theoretical development of the tonal system, which finds in the Art of the Fugue one of the milestones of the development of music; again the last counterpoint on the name B-A-C-H (the letters corresponding in German to the English keys B flat, A, C, B) adding to the logical structure of the Great Fugue the symbolic elements linked with the composer’s name, among others. If Bach was able to construct a pre-established musical edifice, nowadays we can do more: with adequate computer software which can identify keys and maintaining chromatic relations, we can reconstruct the logic of the entire quadruple fugue and substitute the four B-A-C-H notes with any other four obtaining another quadruple fugue. This procedure can be repeated for all the groups of four notes that can be put together from the basic twelve notes, obtaining a number of fugues equal to the simple placings of twelve objects (as we learn from combinatorial analysis) four by four, i.e. 12x11x10x9=11,880 fugues! We might find some more significant ones among them as compared to the original, owing to the archetypes evoked and “rediscovered” by logical-computerized means rather than the composer’s own wishes. This is the kind of trap the mind can lay for us! It should be pointed out, in any case, that Bach was not entirely hypnotized by the architecture of his own creation. There are external musical features and concepts in almost all of the composer’s fugues causing harmonic-melodic intrusions which brilliantly redirect the fugue’s “automatic” route. For example, in the Well-tempered Clavier, in Fugue II, 3 (three parts) the exposition of the subject theme is arranged thus: subject-answer-subject overturned. The immediate presence of an overturned subject is really unusual. Again, in Fugue II, 5 (four parts) the anomalies are abundant: the countersubject deriving from the coda of the subject (without monotonous effects, as usual); the countersubject which is not in double counterpoint (this is pure anarchy!); the fifths in similar motion, not in inner parts. Yet this is a wonderful fugue clearly expressing the difference between art and craftsmanship.
Moving on from Bach to Mozart, we cross over an abyss in a span of a few years. The period saw the growth of eighteenth century formalism and musical gallantry. This had repercussions in the suspension of the process of evocative amplification of emotional archetypes, both in the simplification of Bachian logical musical architecture, and in the creation of musical forms suitable for background music (with certain important exceptions such as Handel and Haydn).
The scene changes significantly with Mozart, though he was not indifferent to the Baroque musical fashions of his time. Nevertheless, he broke the tie with Bach and found an emotional streak (was his own private life a help here?). All music after him is certainly in his debt and the Requiem, his last composition, is a mixture of heart rending pain mixed with the highest hope, almost as if awareness of a new beginning grew out of realization of the end. Mozart is arguably the founder of the true romantic ideal.
Romanticism claimed the right to irrationalism, a kind of powerful resurgence of emotional archetypes which had been kept under control for too long. Here we have Schubert and Beethoven: poetry and Hegel’s ideal in the context of an entirely personal conception dominated by an ethos, a group will represented by the individual genius.
It was only Brahms (preceded to a certain extent by Schumann) who reached the fulfillment of the vibrations of the individual soul. The deepest emotional archetypes are evoked in a synthesis containing all the affective subtleties. Brahms is a universal love act embracing every instant in life. He associates all feelings, even vigorous, tragic ones, with an intimate drama, whose key can only be discovered if one humbly follows the complex, flower lined paths, sometimes crooked and tiring, sometimes straight, which he himself points out.
The National Schools are a follow up to Brahms (8). The vibrations from the souls of specific ethnic groups reach their peak. New energies, long suppressed complete their search for a common destiny of which Homeland, Family and Honour are key components. These new emotions are communicated by the composers of the National Schools in their music, together with the most commonly experienced states of mind, supplying us with an extraordinary, unique key to the heart of a particular people. Listeners, when visiting the places that inspired so much cannot fail to respond to this way of representing the typical traits of an ethnic group, as if specific archetypes had been identified for the purpose. The National Schools of France, Spain, Russia, Norway, Finland, Bohemia, N. America etc. made use of emotional archetypes with maximum effect. Italy unfortunately had no National symphonic school in the 19th. century, unless we include the small number of orchestral compositions by the great opera composers and their overtures, which often reach special heights of inspiration (9). We must wait for the 20th. century, with Respighi, Pizzetti, and especially Casella for the rebirth of Italian instrumental music, which had declined after Vivaldi.
Then, after the National Schools, and after Mahler, Strauss and Berlioz – heralded by Wagner, Franck and Fauré, we have the Impressionists, then the Expressionists, as a negative reaction to an over codified musical language (a chromatic excess deriving from the exact description of different states of mind experienced by the composer during deep identification with the elements of a National Soul determining a musical work), and as a return to the Romantic individual relationship with an artistic object. Even the tonal system broke down, with the introduction of a new scale, in which semitones are abolished, with decisive consequences for harmony and great novelties for musical elaboration of special “atmospheres”, though the archetypes do not change.
At the same time Shostakovich was being forced by Marxist ideology to identify the vibrations of the collective soul, in conflict with his desire to preserve his originality.
Answers came from Bartok and Stravinsky. But atonalism and dodecaphony in a search for new aesthetic-musical canons are on their way. Abstract music comes to the fore, where the pure archetype, almost without logical, structural interventions or mental, or cultural backwash is directly projected into the work of art.
At this point, there follow Stockhausen and electronic music.
Nowadays, we even have “multimedial” music. This makes sense only in so far as each “medium” used for message transmission is connected to the same archetypes. It will be true art if the composer is able to identify them and represent each one with its own language in the context of the specific “medium” expressed, without errors or promiscuity.
2.2 – Conclusions
Returning to the great artistic gifts that centuries of musical elaboration have left us, it is clear that anyone who does not recognize a single musical language as the basis of all music could be tempted to think that many different “musics” (in different times and places) exist instead of just “music”. It is true that for some centuries, the scientifically codified tonal system was believed to be interchangeable with music itself, since it had definitively united musical language. But when it was realized that art could be created atonally and electronically, it became clear that either a new unifying factor had to be found or one would have to turn the singular “music” into “musics”. Admittedly ethnic and cultural diversity has given rise to different formative principles that need to be accepted. However, the possibility of analyzing,understanding and comparing them only lies in the hypothesis of the existence of a sole basic archetypal language, even though it can be supplemented by autonomous mental reworkings and elaborations.
The view presented here is that music is a language articulated on basic archetypes (10) , through which purely musical concepts can be formed and musical thoughts expressed. Their correlation with the concepts and thoughts of human rationality is only possible archetypally, never contextually. More than one musical concept may derive from the same simple or composite archetype or group of archetypes. The essence therein is identical but they differ owing to different “affinities” of the archetypal components with the complete musical thought reworked and developed by the composer.
Can a performance falsify a composer’s message? We believe that this is possible, since the archetype , whether used “naturally”, expanded or reworked, has its own tempo, which cannot vary too much without consequences. For example, a faster performance causes “compression” of the archetypes and of the reworkings with consequent loss of message clarity, while a slower performance “enfeebles” the elements of musical thought with consequent loss of synthesis and thus difficulty in comprehension.
What about vocal music? We see the human voice as a double operator, used simultaneously a) for the enunciation of a musical theme, like an instrument; b) for carrying on rational thought. Therefore, the same archetypes give rise, at the same time, to both musical and rational discourse. It is, however, the text which (obviously) comments on the music, since there need not be any need for a literary translation of a musical text to understand it, even though this is possible.
Nobody wants to criticize opera, which can attain excellent expressive and artistic heights (and this is what happened in 19th. and early 20th. century Italy), but also with the help of non-musical means. We do not only mean the sung text, which is not necessarily completely non-musical, at least to the extent that the voice is considered an instrument and not only a means of expressing rational concepts and emotions, but especially the techniques of stage expression. Pure music requires none of this.
Nevertheless, in the most serious European musical tradition, from the 19th. century onwards, “purely musical” means “purely instrumental”, the human voice only being accepted if used as an instrument. In the same way, a non-musical element arrived with “programme” music. Much was made of unacceptable pollution and corruption first of the composer and then of the audience. And yet no one can deny the importance of some of the symphonic poems by Dvorak and Strauss.
Later, for some musicologists, the idea of the non-musical was extended to all “interference” which could condition music and distance it from what is “purely musical”, such as the character and cultural make up of composers and the inspiration deriving from the context in which they lived.
We see the conflict between “musical” and “non-musical” as only being resolved by the archetypal hypothesis, which leads the artistic element back to a common root, so that all music can be seen as of the programme type (the programme consisting of the sequence of archetypes), while, at the same time, no music is of the programme type (since any pre-established intellectual draft can only be musically expressed by means of archetypes).
In our view, the conflict between the purely musical and the non-musical is due to the fact that music was analyzed starting from music itself and not from man. We believe that the “purely musical” is only an attribute of an archetype; even mental reworkings could be seen as non-musical. Furthermore, there is no sense in talking about coincidence between the “purely musical” and “purely instrumental”, since each instrument was made artificially by man so as to express and mime archetypes, and this is already something “non-musical”. In this respect there is no difference between a violin and the cannon used by Tchaikovsky in the place of timpani in the 1812 Overture.
There is also food for thought in the fact that even Beethoven’s music has been described as full of “non-musical” elements since “it bursts out from a state of tension imposed by the will”, so that his work is “shifted from the purely musical and aesthetic sphere to the ethical and moral one” (Handschin). This seems to us to be far from the truth. It is our view that ethical components and moral impulses, and the state of tension imposed by the will, are the elements, appearing in the composer’s spirit (mind-precordia), that determine the choice and use of archetypes which lead to “purely musical” discourse and thoughts, such as those Beethoven expressed. Certainly, we acknowledge that the great ideals which inspired Beethoven and which he projected so sharply and vigorously, will always be present (like a kind of canon) in all his works and will determine their greatness, but also mark their limits. Man lies behind those great ideals. His mysterious intimacy, which Beethoven could not perceive, will only be revealed for the first time, as we have already remarked, with Brahms.
In conclusion, our infinite gratitude as music lovers goes to those composers and performers who have revealed and passed on the art of music, allowing us, by means of common archetypes and their brilliant mental reworkings and elaborations to perceive “something” which we recognize as an inseparable part of our self.
Notes:
(1) See Appendix 1-7.
(2) See Appendix 1-8a.
(3) See Appendix 1-8b.
(4) We have used this ancient term (constituted, we believe, by viscera-encephalon interaction, as will be shown later) since we believe it to be more conceptually appropriate to command the seat of the emotions, either evoked or perceived, rather than “heart”, which is too delicate and incomplete. We believe that an emotion or state of mind can influence the heart, the other viscera, the sense organs in general, including the sexual ones simultaneously, however differently. It should be remembered that modern physiology has identified the seat of the emotions as being in the encephalon, in the temporal and limbic structures, in the tonsils, while the mind, for what concerns the particularly cognitive part, uses the cerebral cortex.
In our view, man receives the archetypes for his emotions from both inside and outside his body. He perceives them through the sense organs and re-transmits them to the above mentioned encephalic structures, which have the task of identifying and classifying the emotional archetypes and encourage their controlled classification (especially if the hypothesis of genetic predisposition is valid) in deep memory, and whose task and function is to evoke and bring up these archetypes at the moment of deep vision, of the “big bang” preceding the birth of a work of art. This is what we mean by saying that the origin of the emotions is in the encephalon.
Naturally, during normal perception of emotions in human life, they are recognized (and spread through the most suitable viscera) by those very encephalic structures, by comparison with the already stored archetypes.
(5) In the human body we have separated the mind, the mind-precordia complex,and the body in the commom sense of the word (the limbs). The human brain with all its attributes (areas of deep and normal memory and various strata), is the “corporal substratum” which the mind uses to elaborate thought, which can also be “emotional thought” if elaborated by the mind-precordia complex with an emotional content that varies according to the level of precordia involvment. We also introduced the notions of human spirit (connected to the mind) and soul (connected to the mind-precordia complex. This was made necessary by the fact that, while the human body in the common sense of the word has a defined spatio-temporal collocation, the human mind, on the other hand, can reside in the brain (and therefore in the body) but also project itself outside. This happens often, both in normal situations (when, expressing its thoughts, it permeates other minds), and in special circumstances (for example, hypnotizing other people, or when there are telepathy phenomena etc.). Thus we define man’s spirit as the mind in external projection. The mind-precordia complex can also project itself outside the human body,on every occasion when it expresses or shares with others a thought containing emotions (normal situations) or using hypnosis or telepathy with emotional involvment (particular situations). Thus we define man’s soul as the mind-precordia complex in external projection. For the pure materialist, “spirit” and “soul” defined as above are mortal and are subjected to the same degenerative process as the human body. For the spiritualist, “spirit” and “soul” are seen as part of another universe, and, in contrast with the human body, do not decompose and are thus immortal. They can project themselves even at a distance and give rise to phenomena of ubiquity, “bilocation” and doubbling, during which the mind-precordia complex is projected outside, together with will and self-determination, while the human body, in a temporary state of catalexis (a kind of deep sleep characterized by extreme stiffness of the limbs, which ends on return from the outside projection). For scientists and researchers in general, who, until proved otherwise, must keep up their scientific scepticism, the definitions of materialists and spiritualists are unverifiable and therefore cannot be supported. They cannot influence the formulation of philosophical or scientific theories or the interpretation of experimental situations. If this were not the case then we would have to speak of “materialist scientists” and “spiritualist scientists”, and this is a serious contradiction in terms, which often happens unfortunately. This is especially the case when the need to formulate theoretical models in an absolutely aseptic way (so that they can be adapted to either standpoint) is ignored. Then we have a case of scientific bad faith, and such a scientist does not deserve this name.
(6) The archetype is formed and fixed in the cells prepared for the formation of the mind’s deep memory, when an original stimulus presents itself for the first time on its nervous ends, sent by the senses which collected it on the outside (or inside) of the human body. By original stimulus we mean an absolutely new sequence of waves, which cannot be broken up or relatedto others already recorded in the same memory.
By original stimulus, we mean something that has originated from a primitive sensation due to internal or external agents in the human body, but which are however capable of introducing a permanent modification into the human brain of the structure of certain deep memory cells (if there is a genetic code, it will only be able to prepare the ground not act), but not only of those preserving the stimulus. Actually, since the primitive sensations recorded will interfere with each other up to the point that the following ones will be fixed with modalities and configurations which will feel the influence of the previous ones. Permanent modification should be considered a true new formatting of the cells of deep memory, which, after the implanting of the first archetypes will subsequently be able to memorize the archetypes themselves, no longer ascettically, but in the light of those already possessed and still though their filtre. How long can archetype acquisition last? From the age of three onwards? While this acquisition is incomplete, how does the memory of normal events in life, carried out by cerebral sectors certainly different from those recorded by archetypes, act? Separate moments are probably introduced, which are not connected by mental structures of numerability, judgement, logic, emotional comparison, and it is for this reason that memories of early infancy seem more particular, almost different “flashes” for each individual, and they become more logical (and emotional) and comparable as the main archetypes have been acquired. We have spoken of “primitive impressions”. To clarify the concept we should say that the principal archetypes have always been identical for each individual, since the human brain has allowed acquisition. Is the acquisition modality always the same? Might a distorted or insufficient “presentation” (due to organic deficiences) of the archetype which must be fixed and modify the characteristics of the entire capacity for acquisition of deep memory determine a difference between individuals in future chances for logical-emotional control and coordination of all the memorized perceptions memorized by human beings? In any case the period of archetype acquisition is a very delicate moment in man’s entire developmental phase. Archetypes are then mentally reworked when they must form the base for a thought and we do not know for the moment if this mental reworking can be turned into an archetype and if composite archetypes can exist. Actually an archetype that appears to be structured by others is actually a single structure, but can – cf. the Theory of Sets – share elements of other archetypes (such as the numerical or rhythmic ones). In any case it preserves its uniqueness, like a a numerical set which is superimposed on or shares in other sets (intersecting) by means of the same elements, though remaining absolutely “unambiguously defined”. It remains to be seen how distinct archetypes can be called and who the respond to. But through the neural networks of the brain which allow distinct superimposition of stimuli recorded or still to be recorded it should not be difficult to hypothesize and establish the distinct links and the spatial-temporal hierarchies, necessary for the methodological logic of the call of evocation.
Who calls the archetypes? The mind? The mind-precordia complex? Are the call systems already listed in neurophysiology, together with modality and pulsions? In the human body when do the systems of neural networks become actually structured and function and are able to discriminate, receive and select the different archetypes and their mental reworkings if they are fixed in the memory?
We are convinced that mental reworkings, such as those linked to the formation of human language and basic concepts for interpersonal communication make up a stratification, sedimentation separating the zone of deep memory (the seat of pure archetypes) from the zone of normal memory in the mind, where the elaboration and and expression of basic concepts and human language. If this is true, in music mental reworkings belong to this stratification for which musical (or in general artistic) realization can be made up of pure archetypes coming fdrom deep memory and which the mind launches directly and of mental reworkings carried out in their seat.
(7) Another very important argument is the “universality” of archetypes, which must be able to affect each sense ready to express it. This is an essential condition for various artistic expressions (painting, sculpture, literature, music) bursting forth. Probably the same archetype, once acquired, should be supplemented. Can it appear as a composite archetype? Does the process takes place through mental reworking to be added to the initial archetype so as to make up together a composite archetype? As we have already stated the archetype called “composite” should not be considered as having structure: a drop of water is not structured by other drops. The definition “composite” refers to the temporal modalities of acquisition. Let us provide an example. The gentleness archetype, acquired by a newly born baby, initially through a sound: tàa, is supplemented by the stimuli from a caress, and then from a very gentle look and maybe from the mother’s scent. This supplement to the archetype certainly happens at different times, but is due to a mental embrional reworking which is subsequently definitively transformed into an archetype (when supplementation has been completed, preferably according to pre-established genetic schemas) so that the previous incomplete archetype actually ceases to exist. The expression of an archetype in a work of art needs to be technologically activated according to the type of art involved. If it is painting, the gentleness archetype can develop in the contents (e.g. a representation of a man or woman looking at an object of his/her love with gentle intensity) and then a mental reworking will be needed to create a scenario and protagonists. It can develop in the expressive form (e.g. very light brushstrokes, with very close colours, almost to the point of integration – a kind of visual onomatopoeia of the musical archetype); or in both modes simultaneously. If it is sculpture the gentleness archetype can develop either following figurative contents or through extremely light forms or with practically no continuity (without scales), or with both modalities. With literature, whether it is poetry or not, we have both conceptual contents and and the right style to express them.
How does supplementation of an archetype take place? In our view according to growing sensoriness of the brain acquiring it, building itself up following genetic patterns from the moment of the initial cellular formations onwards. First we have the exchange of sound and then tattilità, then smell, then taste and finally sight. According to this conception, we would have a spherical concentric acquisition and configuration (but not structuring) of the archetypes. At the centre of the musical sphere (with sound-rhythm already figured with numerical and logical archetypes) and so on the other acquisitions by concentric spheres, in this order: touch, smell, taste, sight).
Actually, we have an original, significant developmental feature: primitive man began to express himself “artistically” from the outermost archetypal sphere, sight (cave painting), to go on to taste and smell (offering his female companion food and flowers in an ever more complex fashion, after going on to pottery(statuettes of gods and then statues-stelae) and lastly sound (Pan’s pipe).
(8) The Bohemian National School owed much to Brahms. This is hardly surprising, especially in the case of Dvorak, considering the fact that Brahms had a kind of paternal affection for him. Something extraordinary happened, however, in the case of the latter’s Cello Concerto Op. 104. The pupil had surpassed his master. Brahms actually showed a certain envy. He would have liked to have written it himself. This is something that his artistic make up would never have allowed him to do, however. Let us see why.
Firstly, owing to his musical language and the very structure of his musical phrases. His language is subtle and gentle, the orchestral palette homogeneous, with no dramatic contrasts. Profound mental states are evoked to which emotions delicately and distinctly adhere. His musical phrasing is very articulated and generally lengthy and complicated. The archetypal component is rarely foregrounded but is linked with the reworkings; a characteristic trait of Brahms style, though it dampens the effect somewhat. Even in the most dramatic moments (such as the Tragic Overture) initially sharp phrases are subsequently reworked mentally and assimilated, as it were, only to proceed following highly structured expressive logic while losing immediacy and emotional content.
Secondly, owing to a different kind of identification with the subject of composition, which in Brahms is continually filtered through the stirrings of the soul, while in Dvorak there is always a distinction between “filtered” moments marked by intimate vibrations and self revealing ones turning to the composer’s soul only as support for their autonomous expression. This second type of identification would soon appear in many of Debussy’s works, for example La Mer and the Three Nocturnes.
(9) This fact allows many Italian music critics to look down on the National Music Schools considering them as simply an episode in the development of musical thought and take on a purist stance, since they had not experienced the “contamination” provoked by them. Since they have not been affected by this “original sin” they feel they have the right to pontificate on conductors’ performances and the choices of musical directors. We beg readers’ and the world’s pardon for their attitude, because they “know not what they say”. If Italy had had a National Romantic School they would have behaved differently.
(10) Musical structures can be seen as being made up of a basic structure, consisting of a breathing archetype (or a reworking), within which numerical, rhythmic, logical and emotional archetypes are present. Each group of two notes at a distance of a semi-tone and rhythmically unmarked makes up a gentleness archetype, which can become ever “more bitter” if the notes are at a greater distance than a semi-tone. If the notes are rhythmically very marked they can make up sobbing, anxiety or terror etc. archetypes. If, on the other hand, the rhythm is weak, there is a steady weeping, sadness or calm archetype. The strength and inescapability archetypes have their own peculiar characteristics. Each group of more than two notes of increasing height (or decreasing height) is an ascent (or descent) archetype, with or without reworking. Each group of notes “which turn back on themselves” is a doubt archetype (if the notes are very close to each other, usually one semi-tone). If the notes are more distant from each other (one tone or more) they can make up a question archetype (or question-answer, if there are two groups, with logical linkage). Archetypes can also be reworked here so as to modulate or vary expressiveness. Research into identification of new archetypes is in progress.
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