Tag Archives: emotion

Happiness is the most innocuous of emotions; it is plain and uninflected. Compared with its brawny cousins, such as hatred, passion, grief or joy, it is rather simple and nondescript. It is to those as water is to wine.

Happiness is what you see on the faces of children playing outdoors. It is for them, who don’t yet have the burdens of adulthood or the cares of life. They can innocently play with happy abandon. Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Yet, in those cares of life, who doesn’t wish for a few seconds freedom to experience once again the simple happiness of when we were young and didn’t know any better.

Most of our art and music concerns the bigger things. The emotions you get from Mahler are big, complex emotions, piled Pelion on Ossa, building overpowering climaxes that leave us hollowed and purged.

Think about Bach’s B-minor mass, Wagner’s Tristan, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and you find the complexity of life threaded around itself. Of the big emotions, none is uninflected, but includes a tincture of its opposite. “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught.”

Happiness, as I’m using the term here, is unalloyed. And while most of the greater emotions are felt as “happening” to yourself, happiness takes you out of yourself. You are unaware of your self when experiencing it. It is a grace.

In that sense, there is ego invested in the transcendence of Mahler or the Ode to Joy of Beethoven, but when you are happy, you barely exist: Only the happiness exists. You are only really aware of it when you wake from it and realize what you have been gifted.

Of course, such a state can only last a comparatively short time. When the philosopher asks if you have had a happy life, the only accurate answer is that life is not happy, but only moments are.

Art can rouse in us a huge range of emotions, and classical music is designed to explore the subtleties of them, and we are overwhelmed by the passions in Mahler, the transcendence in Bruckner, the joy in Beethoven’s Ninth, the angst in Berg’s violin concerto. All huge, complex emotions.

But surely, there must be some music completely devoid of such cares, and can arouse in us those feelings of abandon and freedom we had as little children. Is there music that is simply happy? This is music I put in the CD player when I just want to rock back and enjoy the simple tunes and unfettered sounds of being happy. Bouncy, tune-filled, catchy feel-good music.

The place to start, where most of the habits of classical music start, is Joseph Haydn. He seems to have invented everything: the symphony, the string quartet, the sonata form — they all descend from Haydn. And Haydn was perhaps the sanest person ever to write music, burdened by no metaphysical agonies. But even his music expresses a variety of thoughts and emotions, movement by movement, from the depth of the Seven Last Words of Christ to the finale of Symphony No. 88, which bounces with unfettered happiness. (Link here).

That kind of ebullience is hard to sustain, but here are five examples from classical music that bounce from beginning to end, along with some suggestions for recordings. (Not “the best” for I have not heard all of the recordings, but these are my favorites).

Franz Schubert Piano Quintet in A “The Trout”

The Trout Quintet is unusual in that it includes a double bass, which provides a solid bottom for the music, which allows the tunes to float along like rafters down a river. It is a sunny quintet, with hardly the whisper of a shadow in its five bright movements. Even the minor-key variation in the fourth movement is dispelled with a major chord — “I was just playing,” its composer seems to be saying.

It was written in 1819, when Schubert was 22, for piano, violin, viola, cello and bass. Through most of his best music — the late piano sonatas, late quartets and the great C-major string quintet — there is a strain of despair that is heartbreaking. Even in his short piano pieces, beloved of amateurs for a century and a half, there runs a vein of deep melancholy that shades even his happiest moments.

But none of this in the Trout. It spreads sunshine from beginning to end.

Almost any performance of The Trout will leave you giddy, but the one essential element of any recording is that you can hear — even feel — the string bass at the bottom. It is the foundation for the edifice.

I’ve always loved two performances. The first is Alexander Schneider with Peter Serkin on piano, Michael Tree on viola, David Soyer on cello and the indomitable Julius Levine on bass. It was on the Vanguard label. And Peter’s father, Rudolf Serkin anchors the Marlboro Festival musicians on Sony (then, Columbia). With Serkin is Jaime Laredo on fiddle, Philipp Naegele on viola, Leslie Parnas on cello and Levine, again, on bass. A classic performance, much loved by many, features Clifford Curzon on piano, with musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic. Originally on Decca (classical music labels are in constant flux, as mega-corporations gobble up older established labels; you never know where a classic performance will show up. Just check Amazon and you’ll find it.)

YouTube video at this link

Gioacchino Rossini String Sonata No. 1 in G

It shouldn’t be surprising that most of the music that expresses mere happiness should have been written by very young composers. The six sonatas for strings were written by Rossini when he was 12 years old, arranged for four string parts: two violin parts, one for cello and one for double bass — again providing that delightful solid bottom for the tunes.

The bass is there because Rossini wrote them while visiting the home of bass player Agostini Triossi in Ravenna, Italy, in 1804, and tossed all six sonatas out in the space of three days to be played by members of the household, with Rossini himself on second violin.

Although written for a quartet of players, they are usually performed by a full ensemble. Versions have been adapted for normal string quartet and for wind band, but the string ensemble has that fresh appeal that matches the music.

I could have chosen any of the six sonatas. They are each in three movements, fast-slow-fast, and in major keys. But I mention the first because I particularly love its jaunty finale, with a tune I can’t get out of my head.

I’ve never heard a bad performance on disc, but mostly I listen to the Naxos recording of the Rossini Ensemble, Budapest. They almost always come in a pack of all six sonatas, so you are likely to love them all. Neville Marriner has a smooth set with the Academy of St. Martin’s in the Field, and Brilliant Classics has the version with four solo players.

YouTube video at this link

Georges Bizet Symphony in C

Another prodigy, Bizet wrote his symphony when he was 17 years old and a student at the Paris Conservatoire. It was never performed in the composer’s lifetime and indeed was lost and forgotten until 1933, when it was found in the composer’s papers, and was given a first performance by Felix Weingartner in 1935. Since then, its infectious tunes and untroubled elan have found it a place in the repertoire.

I have always thought of it as a 19th century version of a Haydn symphony — perfectly proportioned, tuneful, and with no dead spots. Others may have stormed the heavens with Wagnerian thunder and Blitzen, but this symphony contents itself with pleasing its listener with melody, rhythm and smooth harmony.

It has also been lucky on disc, when three of the most lively conductors have taken it on. Leonard Bernstein with the NY Phil, and Leopold Stokowski with the National Philharmonic (a pickup orchestra), and Thomas Beecham with the Royal Philharmonic. You can’t go wrong.

YouTube video at this link

Serge Prokofiev Classical Symphony in D major, Op. 25

Another student work, in 1917 Serge Prokofiev wrote his first symphony in a kind of parodistic style of Haydn or Mozart, but with modern piquant dissonances — what has been derisively called “wrong-note romanticism.”

But the four-movement symphony has proved enormously popular. It bounces from first to last, with memorable tunes and sharp wit.

The composer Boris Asafyev, according to Prokofiev, “put into my mind an idea he was developing, that there is no true joyfulness to be found in Russian music. Thinking about this, I composed a new finale, lively and blithe enough for there to be a complete absence of minor triads in the whole movement, only major ones.”

The energy in this music is propulsive. If anyone is feeling down, with the feeling of systematically knocking the hats off anyone you meet on the streets, a listen to the Classical Symphony will cure you and leave you with a goofy grin on your face.

Many have recorded the symphony. The only failures are when the conductor takes the music too seriously or lacks any sense of humor. There are several dry versions. But I have three that I have loved. Leonard Bernstein and the NY Phil have all the elan and vigor you could ask for, if the ensemble is a tad scruffy. Eugene Ormandy and Philadelphia cannot be topped. It is a perfect recording of the music, bright and witty with gorgeous string playing. And I remember an old Odyssey LP I once owned with Max Goberman and the Vienna New Symphony. Perhaps one day a CD version will be offered.

YouTube video at this link

Darius Milhaud Le Boeuf sur le Toit, Op. 58

Imagine you are in a Brazilian dance hall and the crowd, sloppy with drink and dance, are bouncing to the music of an exuberant band — not all of whom are playing the the same key. And you cannot help but tap your toe, then jiggle your leg, and then get up and dance and sweat with the crowd. That is Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit (“The Bull on the Roof”).

It is a string of mostly Brazilian tunes, some borrowed, some invented by Milhaud, all of which are infectious and life-affirming. It is the most single-mindedly happy music I have ever encountered, completely unselfconscious and joyful. Milhaud himself called it, “15 minutes of music, rapid and gay, as a background to any Charlie Chaplin silent movie.”

You can get a recording of Milhaud himself conducting the Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs-Elysées from 1958, perhaps a bit ragged, but with all the spirit. A standard for decades has been Louis de Froment and the Orchestra of Radio Luxumbourg. But for me the perfect embodiment of this happy music is the Orchestra National de France under Leonard Bernstein; he is the perfect vehicle for the life-spirit of this music.

YouTube video at this link

Those are my five suggestions. There are others: Benjamin Britten’s 1834 Simple Symphony, made up of tunes he wrote when he was 10 years old; or perhaps Shostakovich’s Three Fantastic Dances from 1920, which he wrote between the ages of 14 and 16 — before the specter of Joseph Stalin darkened his art. Perhaps you have other suggestions to leave in the comments.

Let it rain

August 15, 2020

Uncategorized

2 Comments

On an August afternoon in the Blue Ridge Mountains the late afternoon rain grays out the trees and streaks my vision with vertical lines. In the distance I can hear a low rumble, but this is no storm, but a gentle, constant rain. When I lived in the desert many years ago, this was called a “she-rain.”

It has been muggy, with air so thick you can feel it smear on your skin, but the rain clears it out and leaves a fresh smell of green in my nostrils. I step out the front door to soak in the feel of it all.

I look out, up and down the street and see the trees shiver as the drops tag the leaves and comes over me a distinct and particular emotion. I don’t want this feeling to stop, but rather I wish to drink it in and let it swirl through my body. It is not an easy emotion to describe; words are not sufficient. But it is a sense that the world is larger than I am and runs on a pattern and scale that I am only an observer of. There is comfort in that.

Weather carries emotion. We don’t always remember that perhaps because sometimes the emotion is frustration or disappointment, as when you can’t go our in a snowstorm, or fear when it looks like a tornado might be brewing. But the moving air is an agent and cause, the sky and its clouds a ripe metaphor for our interior lives.

Weather is a ground upon which our lives are painted, always there under the surface. A sunny day can make us happier — unless you live in the desert when after two months of continuous sun, you get rather antsy and wish for even just a little reprieve.

I remember once visiting Washington D.C., covering an exhibit at the National Gallery for the newspaper. I was put up in a hotel near Georgetown and in the afternoon a rainshower blew up. I could see it from my room window. I went out the revolving door and a doorman offered me an umbrella. I refused, looking straight up at the sky and letting the drops pelt my face. He looked at me like I was nutty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I live in Arizona. I haven’t seen rain for three months. I love this. I love getting wet.”

I remember when I was a schoolkid and it would snow in the New Jersey winter. The snow would be as deep as my belly and I went out into it and dug a cave in the accumulation and pulled away snow from around my hole, making an ersatz igloo. The snow was ecstatic, and not merely the snow, but my breath clouding the air in front of me, the numbness in my fingers and the cracking in my nose.

When I was living at the beach in Virginia, I once drove down to the water during a nor’easter, with the wind blowing at 40 or 50 miles per hour. The car faced directly into the wind and it bounced violently so that I thought I would go airborne. I couldn’t help but think of an aircraft carrier heading into the wind so the planes could take off with a short run.

Which reminds me of going airborne in a tent. We were camping in Shamrock, Texas, when an evening thunderstorm hit. A tornado had passed through the previous day and we were worried about another. As the rain came down in multiple Niagaras, the wind tore through and, first the tent began to float on the flood, and then began to rise around us. We had to abandon ship and head to the campground office for safety. As I got out, the tent pulled loose from its stakes and I grabbed it by the frame and it flew over my head like a kite. I held on, thinking I might begin flying myself, but managed to pull it down and flatten it and drag the rags with me to the building, where we — and all the other campers — waited out the storm.

But back to today’s rain, gentle and quiet, a hiss on the road and paradiddle on the leaves. It is the middle of a pandemic and we have been sequestered in the house for months. To stand on the stoop and feel the rain and enjoy the welling of emotion is a treat.

It reminds me again that the feeling of emotion is what makes us human. We may be rational beings (at least that’s the argument — I’m not so sure that isn’t wishful thinking), but it is emotion that reminds us we are alive. A computer can think, but I have no evidence that it can stand on a doorstep and enjoy, absolutely enjoy, the rain. And enjoy it to the extent that it warrants the name of joy.

I am 72 years old, and I face the absolute certainty that whatever life I have remaining will be a mere fraction of what I have already lived. The end is within sight, be it even 20 years off. And I feel my existence on this planet more sharply than ever. I am here; I am alive; I take in my breath and let it out again, and with each inhalation comes the smell of the rain-filled air.

There is much suffering in the world, and I have had a small share of it, but when I look at the pale green of the maple tree in the front yard, contrast lowered with the obscuring rainfall, I recognize that even with the pain and misery, there is still beauty — an afflatus that fills my frame and almost brings tears, tears of awareness. Of being alive. Of feeling my fingers and toes wiggle.

Let it rain.

Stuart on emotion

April 11, 2018

Uncategorized

Leave a comment

“The older I get, the more the complexities of life narrow down to simpler components,” said Stuart. “The interactions become more complex, but the basics seem fewer.”

“Yes,” I prodded.

“I’ve been thinking about emotions, or more precisely, about how emotions are manifested by our bodies in terms of muscle reactions, hormonal dumps, brain chemistry — emotions as a physical reaction to external or internal stimuli.”

“Sounds clinical.”

“Well, I’m no scientist and I can’t claim any justification for this, but I’ve spent nearly 70 years examining my self — my inner self — and trying to understand just how I’ve reacted to the many events in my life, both the good and the bad.”

Stuart and I have both been around for a long time, been through many things, some of them together. Marriages, divorces, trips, jobs, houses, friends, pets, births, and more recently, deaths.

“And I’ve come to believe that there are really only six emotions.”

“Surely, there are an infinite number of emotions,” I said. “At least an uncounted number. ‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’ ”

“Yes, it sometimes seems that way, but I think it is more like the taste buds on your tongue. Only a few, but the combinations of them allow us to identify a huge range of flavors.

“The six emotions I have winnowed it all down to are: sadness, anger, fear, contentment, joy, and finally, desire — erotic desire. Each of these manifests itself in a distinct part of the body, or combination of corporeal locations.”

“I know where desire is felt.”

“Well, yes, but I don’t mean this as a joke. Let’s take them one by one and examine them.

“I start with sadness, because that’s the one most proximate, at least for you.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Sadness — and I mean sadness, I don’t mean depression, which is a lack of affect and therefore, the opposite of emotion — sadness wells up in the eyes, in the higher portions of the chest, in a pursing of lips graduating into a pulling apart of the corners of the mouth and stretching of the neck ligaments.

“Each of these emotions is a range, not a single thing. Sadness can run from a kind of wistfulness into a full blown gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.”

“Been there.”

“Fear hits the pit of the stomach and the back of the neck; it widens the eyes and tightens the throat. Anger tenses the whole face and focuses the eyes, tightening their orbits; it also stiffens the back of the throat and may also clench the fists.

“Contentment is a warm feeling throughout the body, a relaxation of tightnesses. It is what we most often call happiness. And it is very different from joy, which is an inhalation, or alternately, a holding of breath, along with a swelling of chest and perhaps a throwing back of arms. You almost escape your skin.

“And desire — and I mean specifically sexual desire, not just the inclination to acquire what one doesn’t have — desire swells the loins.”

“And what about love? Isn’t that one of the big emotions?”

“In my way of thinking about it, love is a cause of emotions, not an emotion itself.

“Think about it. When you are young, at first flush, love is a combination of joy and desire; as you age, it may become contentment and desire, then, perhaps contentment alone. Certainly it can also cause anger in one, or fear, and ultimately, love can be expressed through sadness. You know about that all too directly. These are all the pipes attached to the keys of the organs, from flute to diapason.”

“And hate?”

“Likewise, it triggers a range of notes: anger and fear mostly.”

I can never tell just how seriously to take Stuart. His enthusiasms are certainly genuine, but they are not often long lived. He gets on a topic, drives it to its logical or illogical end and than, like an infant tempted by some new shiny object, moves on to something else. Still, there is often something to be learned by looking at the world from an angle outside even the periphery.

“I imagine some sort of sliders on a sound studio mixing panel, pull up the fear and anger, deaden the joy and contentment. Fingers constantly pushing the controls up and down.

“Again, my disclaimer: I am no scientist, this is all just self-examination, but science does seem to have correlated certain hormones and neurotransmitters with emotional reactions. Fear and adrenaline, contentment and serotonin. Endorphins and joy. Cocktails mixing them make for some astonishing complexity. We all know it’s possible to love and hate at the same time. Shaken, not stirred.”

“You have me remembering a girlfriend I had many years ago, in Seattle,” I said. “I was crazy in love at the time, but her reaction was that ‘Love is just pheromones.’ Rather knocked me down a bit.”

“I remember her,” Stuart said. “Nothing blonder than her hair but the sun.”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Well, it started me thinking. We almost always pit emotion against rational thought, as if they were opposites. Bones and Spock. What if thought was the same as emotion — a physical and chemical reaction that the body washes over us? Are there peptides and purines that channel or produce reason? Is it all ‘just pheromones?’ We privilege reason over emotion in our culture, but let’s face it, reason does not always provide better outcomes than emotion. Remember Halberstam’s book with the ironic title?”

“The Best and the Brightest.”

“Yes. Logic, I’ve always said, is a provincialism of our culture. I blame Plato.”

“You usually do.”

“Or maybe Zeno. His paradox only works in language, not in reality. The tortoise will always be passed by Achilles in just a couple of bounds. Yet, the logic proves that Achilles cannot possibly ever catch up. I have doubted reason ever since I thought that one through.

“So, I’m imagining a gushing brain chemistry that makes us divide each question into ones and zeros, yes or no, black or white, salt or pepper, chocolate or vanilla. Is there a bestiary of thought as there seems to be one of emotion? You love Beethoven’s late quartets, right?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“And what have you always said about the ‘Heiliger Dankgesang’ or the cavatina? ‘At its highest levels,’ you said, ‘thought and emotion cannot be told apart.’ Isn’t that right?”

“To quote a First Century prophet from the Levant: ‘You have said it.’ ”

“So, I’m trying to work out another mixing board, one for thought. Or, is it the same mixing board, but turned sideways? Does thinking create facial expressions or muscle contractions the way emotions do? When I’m lost in thought, I can feel me face go all flabby as I’m lost in thought — or sometimes the reverse, I screw up my lips and nose as I work through a knotty problem.

“At the very least, I’m convinced that the body and the mind are not separate entities, but rather a single thing looked at from different ends. We get all flummoxed when we divide ourselves up between thinking and feeling, between body and soul, between heaven and earth, between realism and idealism. I imagine it all as Medieval humors, only with modern, scientific names like urocortin and oxytocin. They didn’t have microscopes and magnetic resonance machines, but those Medieval people were not simple-minded idiots. Their brains were just as good as ours. It’s just their research facilities were underfunded. And they didn’t have as many giants on whose shoulders to stand.”

“So, she was right? It’s all just pheromones?”

“Perhaps. Remember, I’m no scientist, and even if it is all just pheromones, it doesn’t feel as if it is.”

“Well, I think it’s dinner time and I’m feeling hungry. Let’s go see what we can cook up. I’ve got a new pasta recipe that I think Genevieve will like.”