From 4:58-7:03 of this video, Leonard Bernstein’s face is transcendent as he is conducting the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra in the Finale of Mahler’s Second Symphony.
Why do we feel transcendent when listening to music?
A Durchbruch moment can lead to “a shiver [that] passes for a second through the listener as if success were really achieved” (Theodor Adorno, Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy).
Combining music theory analysis, philosophical treatises (like writings by Adorno and Nietzsche), ethological & biological models, and social psychology conjectures, I propose that we can explain why people feel shivers + goosebumps, awe + transcendence, and like they are friends with other audience members when we listen to certain passages of Mahler’s music.
Some conclusions:
There are three signifiers that allow music to evoke one of the seemingly-ineffable emotions: transcendence
There is psychological evidence consistent with music theory observations made by Mahler scholars throughout the last century
We can use the analytic methods I propose to find new transcendent Durchbruch passages in works by Mahler and other Late Romantic composers
