Ouvir, sentir e compreender: sobre o papel das emoções na experiência estético-musical

The article examines the role of emotions in the experience with (instrumental) music, developing three basic theses: 1) music can be considered as a “narrative text”, which performs a specific mode of engagement; 2) emotions appear in the musical experience basically in two ways: as expression (or “clarification”), when the psychological agent carrying such emotions is the musical persona, and as something that should constitute the listener’s experience; 3) the listener's emotional responses constitute an active and necessary process for filling in the “gaps” of the musical narrative and decisively compose the process of understanding the musical work.