Is one possible without the other? Doesn't everyone start to hum at some point when they're in love? Because they're happy, because their feelings overwhelm them… And when they fall out of love, then it's really time for music: what wonderful songs have been inspired by this pain that spreads throughout the body!
And that's where we come to putting your foot in it. In the full flush of love, things happen that aren't so good at all, viewed (or heard) in the cold light of day. Bombast, excessive behaviour, pathos, ecstasy – we've all been there. But if you're in the right frame of mind, it pierces your heart. And that's probably the reason why love songs are so popular – and why they have been around for so long.
Unrequited love
If we take a closer look, it's often love that prompts people to compose music. That was the case centuries ago, when the troubadours in the south of France sang of their love for a lady who was generally of noble birth, and married into the bargain. The singers never imagined that their love would be requited. One new feature was that the texts of the troubadours' songs were set in the vernacular, and not in Latin. Morover, most of the singers on the streets of Provence were actually poor and humble souls who nonetheless had the chutzpa to sing about unattainable women – and in a language that everybody understood!
The music of the troubadours
The troubadours established a tradition that exists to this day, and had a noticeable influence on French society: Paris, the city of love; the French language, Serge Gainsbourg, Georges Brassens, Edith Piaf, chansons, éclairs, champagne, pommes d’amour, the millions of heart-shaped padlocks in the railings of the Pont des Arts. Oh là là!
The whole subject drips with clichés, no two ways about it. Luckily there are artists like Albin de la Simone and Pomme, who liberate the chanson from some of the sugary clichés and still sing about love as the troubadours intended.
Pomme
But why sing at all? What precisely is the mysterious connection between love and music that has prompted even the 2023 International Music Festival to take that as its motto?
It's like this: whenever someone feels passion and physical attraction, the body releases serotonin and other hormones, the so-called »feel-good« substances that it can produce itself. And music apparently intensifies this hormone production. In addition, music is capable of anchoring emotions we have experienced in our memory, and thus actually amplify these thoughts.
The moment, for instance, when someone at a party shouts »This is OUR song!«, and pulls someone else on to the dancefloor with him to immerse themselves in special memories: nice feelings reloaded.
Moved to tears
But does it still work with serotonin and our memory when there is no text? Can purely instrumental music trigger the same feelings? Of course it can!
After all, it's only a very few listeners who really understand and follow the lyrics being sung. It's the music itself that makes the difference, and can even move the listener to tears.
Which brings us to the next question: does the songwriter himself cry while he is working? Well, that's a personal matter that has nothing to do with musical talent, so there is obviously no reliable data. But there are signs in some classical works in particular that a certain passage didn't leave the composer unmoved.
Mozart, for example, wrote the name »Constanze« above a diminished chord in a sonata movement only completed and published after his death, while one bar before that the name »Sophie« appears over the minor chord with a suspended second. Who was Sophie? – His future wife's sister, whom Mozart would really much rather have married.
Robert Schumann, in turn, wrote the initials of the woman he was engaged to for a little while into his very early piano cycle »Carnaval« at several places. Later on, the first letters of the name Clara Wieck miraculously turned up, whose nickname »Chiarina« that Schumann gave her also served as the title of one of these miniatures.
Robert Schumann's »Chiarina«
Alexander Scriabin, on the other hand, wanted to be on the safe side, and added expression marks to his score that describe his frame of mind unequivocally and remarkably precisely to the interpreter. »Languishing«, or »with desire« are examples, »with delight and tenderness« or even »with thrilling violence«.
And now, to make sure we've exploited every single opportunity to put our proverbial foot in it, this little overview of the magical connection between love and music ends with a ranking, admittedly pretty arbitrary, of the absolute power couples in the history of music. Enjoy!
