TEORÍA DE LOS AFECTOS - DOCTRINE OF AFFECTS

La teoría de los afectos (Affektenlehre, en alemán) es parte del corpus de la estética. Ampliamente aceptada por los teóricos y compositores del barroco tardío, quienes creían que la música es capaz de provocar distintas emociones en el oyente. Como núcleo de esta doctrina estaba la convicción de que, mediante un uso apropiado de los procesos musicales, el compositor podía crear una pieza de música capaz de producir una respuesta emocional involuntaria en la audiencia.

Estos recursos fueron catalogados y descritos rigurosamentepor teróricos de los siglos XVII y XVIII como Athanasius Kircher, Andreas Werkmeister, Johan David Heinichen, y Johann Matteson. Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach fue un paradigma de la utilización de esta doctrina, así como los miembros de la escuela de Mannheim.

La atención a los aspectos emocionales de la música no son exclusivos del barroco, se pueden encontrar a lo largo de la historia de la música. Supone una parte fundamental de la teoría musical de la antigua Grecia (la doctrina del ethos), tiene una importancia particular en el romanticismo del siglo XIX, y también se tiene en cuenta en la música no occidental como el raga Hindú. Pero es en el barroco, sin embargo, cuando los teóricos, influenciados por la Ilustración y la tendencia a organizar enciclopédicamente todo conocimiento, cuando se intenta definir las distintas categorías afectivas de la música.

"En la práctica, la retórica incluye el diseño de figuras, motivos o notas individuales mediante cambios en la armonía, dinámica, tempos, ritmo y articulación. Este método interpretativo focaliza la importancia de la flexibilidad e innovación. Siempre ha de haber variación, lo que añade una dimensión adicional en el discurso musical que retiene la atención del oyente. Tanto los músicos como los compositores eran formados en estas reglas de la retórica, y las partituras mostraban una mínima información, ya que se daba por supuesto que el intérprete "llenara los huecos". Estas técnicas de la retórica llegaron a ser parte inseparable de la composición y la ejecución musical, siendo el lenguaje principal de las obras tonales.
"Rhetoric performance practice encompasses the shaping of figures, motifs and individual notes through changes in harmony, dynamics, timing, rhythm and articulation. This interpretational method emphasizes the importance of flexibility and innovation; there must always be variation, which adds a supplemental dimension in making music speak to the listeners and hold their attention. Both musicians and composers were trained in these rhetoric rules, and the scores are minimally annotated because the performer was expected to “fill in the blanks”. Rhetoric techniques became embedded in music composition and performance and remain the principle language of tonal music compositions.
During the reign of rhetoric, it was most important to make the audience feel affects through the music, as opposed to the romantic period during which the performer is responsible for revealing the composer’s emotions in the music." [http://www.makingsense.no/?page_id=429]

En este período, la puesta en práctica de esta teoría tiene lugar mediante dos recursos:

Schemata: denominación que se ha dado recientemente a una serie de patrones melódicos y armónicos que refuerzan determinados aspectos de las relaciones funcionales de la música buscando estabilidad, progresión, ascenso, descenso, etc. Y con ello, provocar ciertas emociones. Véase al final de la página los enlaces a los schemata ya analizados.
Retórica musical: en su forma más directa, es el arte de la persuasión en el discurso. En este blog trataremos de analizar distintas figuras retóricas aplicables a la composición.

Doctrine of the affections, also called Doctrine Of Affects, German Affektenlehre, theory of musical aesthetics widely accepted by late Baroque theorists and composers, that embraced the proposition that music is capable of arousing a variety of specific emotions within the listener. At the centre of the doctrine was the belief that, by making use of the proper standard musical procedure or device, the composer could create a piece of music capable of producing a particular involuntary emotional response in his audience.

These devices and their affective counterparts were rigorously cataloged and described by such 17th- and 18th-century theorists as Athanasius Kirchner, Andreas Werckmeister, Johann David Heinichen, and Johann Matteson. Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach and the Mannheim School were exponents of the doctrine.

The contemplation of the emotional aspect of music is not limited to the Baroque era but may be found throughout the history of music. It is an essential part of ancient Greek musical theory (the doctrine of ethos), it takes on a particular importance in the Romantic movement of the 19th century, and it also occurs in such non-Western music as the Indian raga. It was in the Baroque era, however, that theorists, influenced by the Enlightenment's tendency toward encyclopaedic organization of all knowledge, attempted to delineate music into affective categories.

"Rhetoric performance practice encompasses the shaping of figures, motifs and individual notes through changes in harmony, dynamics, timing, rhythm and articulation. This interpretational method emphasizes the importance of flexibility and innovation; there must always be variation, which adds a supplemental dimension in making music speak to the listeners and hold their attention. Both musicians and composers were trained in these rhetoric rules, and the scores are minimally annotated because the performer was expected to “fill in the blanks”. The composer trusted the musicians to follow the established practice and conventions of the time. Rhetoric techniques became embedded in music composition and performance and remain the principle language of tonal music compositions.

During the reign of rhetoric, it was most important to make the audience feel affects through the music, as opposed to the romantic period during which the performer is responsible for revealing the composer’s emotions in the music." [http://www.makingsense.no/?page_id=429]

In this period, the practice of the theory becomes reality using two resources:

Schemata: name given recently to a series of melodic and harmonic patterns reinforcing specific aspects of functional relationships in music, trying to express stability, progression, rising, fall, etc...., and conveying emotions in the listener. See below for links to schemata.
Musical Rhetoric: in the simplest sense is the art or the craft of persuasion or discourse. In this blog we are trying to analyze rhetoric figures for composition.

SCHEMATA (Spanish)

https://komptools.blogspot.com/2022/11/el-estilo-galante.html