Psychoanalysis and Music

It is a very peculiar phenomenon that psychoanalysis which contributed so much to our understanding of the dynamic processes effective in the works of art, has done so little for our understanding of the artistic activity which plays a greater role in our lives than any other, namely music. At first sight one might obtain the impression that this is due to the fact that the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who was the trailblazer in all fields of psychoanalytic endeavor, had apparently hardly any interest in music. He said so himself in his paper The Moses of Michelangelo “…, works of art do exercise a powerful effect on me, especially those of literature and sculpture, less often of painting. This has occasioned me, when I have been contemplating such things, to spend a long time before them trying to apprehend them in my own way, i.e. to explain to myself what their effect is due to. Wherever I cannot do this, as for instance in music, I am almost incapable of obtaining any pleasure. Some rationalistic, or perhaps analytic, turn of mind in me rebels against being moved by a thing without knowing why I am thus affected and what it is that affects me.” (Collected Papers, Vol. IV, Sigmund Freud, 1914, p. 257.)

However, other evidence makes it doubtful whether music was so foreign to the founder of psychoanalysis. We read in Jones' biography that Freud “paid only very occasional visits to the theater or opera. The operas had to be by Mozart, though an exception was made with Carmen.” (The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones, Basic Books Inc.)—And in Wortis: “I had just bought tickets to Don Juan and said it was one of my very favorite operas.”—That is no wonder,” said Freud, “It is the greatest opera there is.” (Fragments of an analysis with Freud by Joseph Wortis, p. 161.)

Wortis' report, if trustworthy, would indicate that Freud was not completely insensitive to the emotional impact of the great musical genius of Mozart. We further read in the inte