"A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humour will stimulate a like humour in the listener"
About this Quote
Bach is arguing for a kind of emotional honesty that sounds almost obvious now, but in the 18th century it was a provocation against the idea of music as polite craft alone. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach sits at the hinge between the baroque’s ornate architecture and the emerging Sturm und Drang appetite for volatility, surprise, and nerves. His claim that a musician must be moved to move others is less a self-help slogan than a performance ethic: the player’s inner weather is part of the instrument.
The intent is practical. He’s not romanticizing inspiration; he’s prescribing method. “Of necessity” is the tell: feeling isn’t optional garnish, it’s required technique. In an era when music circulated through courts and salons, where decorum could flatten expression into tasteful sameness, Bach insists that affect has to be embodied. The performer doesn’t transmit emotion like a messenger delivering a sealed letter; he generates it in real time, and the audience reads the proof in phrasing, touch, timing, even risk.
The subtext is almost modern psychology: emotions are contagious. “Revealing” your humor doesn’t mean cracking jokes; it means letting your temperament show through the sound. Bach anticipates what we’d now call mirroring: listeners pick up cues and replicate the feeling internally. That makes the musician a catalyst, not a mere executor of notes, and it quietly raises the stakes of interpretation. If you play safely, you won’t just sound safe; you’ll make the room feel safe, too - and that’s the opposite of art that lingers.
The intent is practical. He’s not romanticizing inspiration; he’s prescribing method. “Of necessity” is the tell: feeling isn’t optional garnish, it’s required technique. In an era when music circulated through courts and salons, where decorum could flatten expression into tasteful sameness, Bach insists that affect has to be embodied. The performer doesn’t transmit emotion like a messenger delivering a sealed letter; he generates it in real time, and the audience reads the proof in phrasing, touch, timing, even risk.
The subtext is almost modern psychology: emotions are contagious. “Revealing” your humor doesn’t mean cracking jokes; it means letting your temperament show through the sound. Bach anticipates what we’d now call mirroring: listeners pick up cues and replicate the feeling internally. That makes the musician a catalyst, not a mere executor of notes, and it quietly raises the stakes of interpretation. If you play safely, you won’t just sound safe; you’ll make the room feel safe, too - and that’s the opposite of art that lingers.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen), 1753 (English rendering of passage on musical expression/affect). |
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