Sound, Space and the Aesthetics of the Sublime

https://templetonreligiontrust.org/explore/seeking-the-acoustic-signature-of-transcendence/

funded by Templeton Religion Trust ‘Art Seeking Understanding’ initiative

The proposed project aims to establish an empirically based, holistic approach to the study of how sound and space combine to create an aesthetic of the sublime.
Integrating research and scholarship in musicology, art and architectural history, archeology, anthropology and religious studies, architectural acoustics, audio engineering and digital signal processing, psychophysics, and cognitive neuroscience, we seek to discover underlying principles in which musical and ritual sounds modulated by the physical spaces in which they are created, transmitted, and perceived, elicit powerful aesthetic and/or spiritual responses in listeners and/or congregants. Specifically, we hope to determine those sonic attributes, and their associated physical and architectural features that, through the diffusion and dispersal of both musical and ritualistic sounds in space, create a sense of wonder and awe. We approach the topic from a perceptual and cognitive orientation in which acoustical models generated from analyses of site recordings provide methods and materials for experiments in perception and cognition.

Combining existing knowledge with new technologies and novel methods we will establish a framework to measure, analyze, model, and simulate the acoustic characteristics of particular spaces, and methods and tools to study the perceptual and cognitive effects these characteristics have vis a vis art and ritual.

Project team:

• Abel, Jonathan – PhD, Professor (Adjunct), Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University
• Berger, Jonathan – DMA, Professor, Music, Stanford University (PI)
• Berger, Talya – DMA, Senior Lecturer, Music, Stanford University• Callery, Eoin – DMA, Lecturer, Irish World Academy of Music, University of Limerick
• Kermit Canfield-Dafilou, Elliot, PhD candidate, Stanford University
• Kirsh, David, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego
• Kolar, Miriam – PhD, Music and Archaeoacoustics
• Nair, Stella – PhD, Professor, Art History, University of California, Los
Angeles
• Ritter, Jonathan, PhD, Professor, Ethnomusicology, University of California, Riverside.
• Weaver, Timothy – PhD, Professor, Emergent Digital Practices, Denver University

Reanimating the music of Chiesa Sant’Aniceto

with Jonathan Abel, Elliott Canfield-Dafilou, Eoin Callery, Talya Berger, Timothy Weaver

This project brings together musicological research – in particular aspects of performance practices in early 17th century Rome – with acoustical studies of a church of musical significance constructed and active during this period. The goal is to study the relationship between music and the specific space in which it was intended to be heard.

The study site selected is the Chiesa Sant’Aniceto in Palazzo Altemps – an exquisite example of a sacred space with rich and complex acoustical qualities. The musical materials comprise works composed specifically for performance in Sant’Aniceto selected from an anthology of part-books from the Altemps codices.

Working with this unique corpus of source materials and a computational model of the acoustics of that church, we demonstrate how the music’s textures and character (including rate of harmonic change, registral distribution, and degree of dissonance) make use of the acoustical properties of the space.

Using these analyses we address the broader question of the interrelationship between compositional practice and architectural design beyond this single case study.  We do so first, by considering how the music selected in the Sant’Aniceto study would sound in a different Roman church active during the same period, specifically the of Chiesa dei Gesu.

Finally, we explore specific aspects of performance practices, including tempo, dynamics, embellishment, and the role of the organ accompaniment.

 

Copyright 2015 Jonathan Berger | All Rights Reserved