Article ID: CBB001320389

Experiments on Tone Color in Music and Acoustics: Helmholtz, Schoenberg, and Klangfarbenmelodie (2013)

unapi

In the mid-nineteenth century, Hermann von Helmholtz developed a new, mathematically formalized representation of the quality of tones, which he termed musikalische Klangfarbe. He did so at the price of excluding change from this representation and from the sounds he experimented with. Later researchers and composers discovered the cognitive and aesthetic side effects of this new concept. Experimental psychologist Carl Stumpf found that stable tones veil their source; their recognition strongly depends on their characteristic beginnings and endings. Arnold Schoenberg in turn used this effect to merge the sounds of musical instruments into new orchestral colors. On the basis of a three-part case study, I argue that nineteenth-century research in perception has deeply affected twentieth-century concepts of music, bringing to the fore the aesthetic quality of experimental situations.

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Authors & Contributors
Pantalony, David Alexander
Rieger, Matthias
Kursell, Julia
Wittje, Roland
Tichindeleanu, Ovidiu
Schmidt, Michael J.
Concepts
Music
Acoustics
Musical instruments
Music theory
Science and music
Physics
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Early modern
Renaissance
17th century
Places
Germany
United States
France
Norway
Europe
Great Britain
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