WHY WE LISTEN TO SAD MUSIC WHEN WE’RE SAD:

…It’s counterintuitive, but Johnson’s story suggests that the desolation in Schostakovich’s music, resonating with the desolation in their hearts, served to bolster the spirits of the Russian populace at the time. The premise postulated by Johnson and neuroscientist Raymond Tallis, who co-hosted the event, is the oft-repeated idea that music, by conferring a narrative structure to emotion, brings emotion closer to thought. “There is something about seeing your own mood reflected that allows you to let go of that feeling,” says Johnson.

But it is not so simple. As Tallis, who was standing in for an absent Robert Winston, pointed out at the start of the evening’s conversation, there is a complex interplay between the emotion the composer attempts to write into the music, that conveyed by the music, the listener’s interpretation, and the listener’s mood. This was resoundingly reflected in the results of an experiment carried out on the evening’s audience.

more (via the Rattus)