INTERNATIONAL LEXICON OF AESTHETICS

Spring 2024 Edition, ISSN 2611-5166, ISBN 9791222313085, DOI 10.7413/18258630154

MUSICAL SPATIALITY
By Amalia Salvestrini

(First published May 31, 2024)

It. Spazialità musicale; Fr. Spatialité musicale; Germ. Musikalische Räumlichkeit; Span. Espacialidad musical.
Musical space in its general sense can be defined as the relational structure of the sound phenomenon
(Piana 1991, 2013), considered internally in the imaginative significance of the sound matter and externally
in its relationship with the sound body and the environment. According to Giovanni Piana (2013, but see
also Serra 2008 and Di Stefano 2022), the concept has two meanings. The first is a transposed or internal
one, referring to sound as such, i.e. in itself, and to some qualities of sound perception, such as intervals,
rhythms, melodies, and timbres, which can be interpreted in terms of spatiality. The second is a literal or
external meaning, indicating the relationships between sound sources, movement and resonance in a
resonant body or environment.
As a structural aspect of sound matter and, correlatively, of the ways in which it is understood, sound
spatiality has been the subject of various insights in different epochs and cultures.

TRANSPOSED AND INTERNAL MEANING

The sound phenomenon can be understood in various relevant ways through the spatial transposition of
its main features, especially intervals and consonances. The Neopythagoreans transpose the auditory
phenomenon of sounds pitches into the visual space of the monochord, reaching a discrete conception of
musical space. On the contrary, Aristoxenus defines musical space with a metaphorical lexicon and with
references to a continuous space (Piana 2010). For some scholars, it was only between the 9 th and 11th
centuries that sound pitches were conceptualised in spatial terms with graphic notation, for example by
Guido d’Arezzo (Duchez 1979).

Concerning harmonic aspects of the internal meaning of musical space, it can be observed that, in the
tonal system, musical spatiality is organised around a fundamental note that determines harmonic
relationships, while in other non-tonal systems or methods, such as in dodecaphony, musical spatiality is
free of any sound centre, even if it may be intrinsically articulated (Schoenberg 1950, Adorno 1949, Boulez
1963, Rognoni 1974, Melchiorre 1987).

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From the second half of the 20th century, the question of music spatiality has become the subject of
debate in various research fields. While Roger Scruton argues that spatiality in music has only a
metaphorical sense, since sound becomes music when abstracted from its sound source (Scruton 1997, see
also Bertinetto 2012), other authors ascribe to musical spatiality a meaning that is more than simply
metaphorical. Carlo Ragghianti points out that spatiality in music depends on the performer’s disposition
in the hall, but Enzo Carli suggests that it concerns the relationships between notes (intervals) and other
musical parameters, such as intensity and timbre (Carli 1998).

Giovanni Piana regards sound spatiality as a chapter of the more general question of the
phenomenological constitution of space (Piana 2013). On this basis, Piana offers a critique of the thesis put
forward by Viktor Zuckerkandl in Sound and Symbol (1956).

Zuckerkandl envisages auditory space as a specific kind of spatiality, i.e. a unitary space in which sound is
everywhere, different from visual and tactile space. This perspective implies thinking of space not as a
“juxtaposition” of places, but as an “interpenetration”, as in the triadic chord, where the notes have
intrinsic tendencies and can be heard through each other. Nevertheless, according to Piana, this idea
presupposes that tonal language is the only musical language that can ensure the perception of auditory
space (Piana 2013).

For Piana, on the contrary, sound spatiality reveals a whole constituted by a relational structure, open both
internally and externally (Piana 1991, 2013), in which one can highlight ratios such as intervals, rhythms,
timbres, intensity, and with the resonant body and the environment. The relational structure of sound
matter has an intrinsic imaginative potential that can be expressed through spatial interpretations of the
sound phenomenon, interpretations that always depend on the passive synthesis in sound matter, which
determines the ways in which it can be understood. Sound space underlines a continuity in the perception
of distances between notes intervals, rhythms, timbres, and intensities. Musical space is thus like a
continuous flow (Piana 1991).

The translated sense of musical spatiality is another aspect on which composers have worked. A historical
example is the motet Nuper rosarum flores (1436) by Guillaume Dufay. The architectural proportions of the
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Brunelleschi’s dome provide the criteria for this musical
composition (Melchiorre 1987).

More recently, Iannis Xenakis has worked extensively on the mathematical criteria and processes that
bring together architectural planning and musical composition, particularly in the primacy of the
continuous over the discrete, following Aristoxenus (Melchiorre 2023). Concerning the relevance of
continuous musical space, one can cite Embellie for viola (1981), where the use of microtonal oscillations
and glissandi gives the idea of sound space as a flow and process. With regard to music and architecture,
Metastaseis (1955) and Concret PH (1958), composed for the Philips Pavilion designed by Le Corbusier and
Xenakis, are compositions that also address the theoretical problem of the continuous passage between
two discrete points (Melchiorre 1987).

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TRANSPOSED AND INTERNAL MEANING

The sound phenomenon Giovanni Piana also underlines, among others, some essential aspects of musical
spatiality, considered in its external meanings, particularly in terms of the provenance, radiation, and
movement of sound. A sound radiates from a source, e.g. a violin, and it is amplified in the resonance body
of the instrument and diffused in the hall. The sound therefore has a provenance that is localised and a
radiation, but also a movement, if the sound source is moving around the hall (Piana 2013).

Developing some of Piana’s ideas, Carlo Serra (2017) seems to identify a point where the two sides of our
question can be connected, namely the relationship between sound matter, perceptual rules, and the
imagination. Perception is oriented towards sound matter, which guides the intentional modes in which
sound can be understood, in terms of both the spatialisation of its intrinsic features and the perception of
it in the environment. For example, when our attention is caught by a song within an urban soundscape,
we hear the melody, but the background stimulates us, as Husserl pointed out. Similarly, we may
recognise a form (regular rhythm) in a natural material (water drops) on the basis of the specific structure
of the sound material.

Another perspective comes from Charles Nussbaum (2007, see also Bertinetto 2012) who intends musical
space as a virtual dimension in which the listener is aware of environmental affordances, namely context
features that appear “actionable” according to “action plans”. Therefore, “musical affordances” such as
emotions produce in the listener’s “virtual musical space” some off-line, or not-real, motor schemata.

The issue of musical spatiality in relation to the environment also involves the question of soundscape. In
The Tuning of the World (1977), Murray Shafer highlights two new fields of research, namely “acoustic
ecology” and “acoustic design”. While the former also historically examines soundscapes in relation to life
and society, the latter (i.e., “acoustic design”) aims to improve their orchestration.

Nevertheless, according to some scholars, Schafer’s perspective poses ideological and epistemic problems
(radical cultural relativism and atemporal assumptions), mainly because it underestimates the imaginative,
narrative and symbolic significance of soundscape, which Shafer seems to understand primarily in its
informational meaning (Serra 2005).

Relationships between sound sources, resonant bodies, and the environment are also at the centre of
cultural imaginative variations, as has been explored in ethnomusicological and aesthetic studies (Feld
1990, Serra 2008). One might mention Kaluli’s music, for example, in which the sound of the forest is
charged with imaginative meaning and constitutes a stratified soundscape in which vocal practices define
a complex musical interaction pregnant with symbolic and affective meanings (Feld 1990, Serra 2008).

Phenomenological and ethnomusicological studies have also influenced the contemporary aesthetic
research on atmosphere. Atmosphere can generally be defined as “felt spaces”, “spatially effused”, and
“semi-objective” intersubjective feelings (Böhme 2006, Vizzardelli 2007). In addition, musical atmospheres
consist of both a relational structure, conceived as a parts/whole ratio, and “atmospheric practices” that
operate on sound in order to modify atmosphere (Riedel-Torvinen 2023).

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In musical composition there have always been methods of sound spatialisation that lend perceptual
significance to musical spatiality, as illustrated by architectural designs aimed at sound diffusion, as in the
case of theatres (Pozzi 1987). Several scores consider space as a compositional element, exploring sound
provenance and depth, for example in polychorality (Friar Ruffino Bartolucci, Willaert, Giovanni and Andrea
Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi) and in Mahler’s symphonies. In the First symphony, for instance, the two
trumpets in the wings evoke sound depth, a “thought on the space of music representation”, creating a
“stratification” that suggests “a world that opens up” (Serra 2020). In the 20 th century, research on sound
spatialisation developed greatly, also thanks to electroacoustic music (e.g. Stockhausen in Spiral, 1968).
Luigi Nono intensely explored musical spatiality, even before live electronics. In addition to compositions
such as Prometeo. Tragedia dell’ascolto (Prometheus. Tragedy about Listening, 1985), conceived in
collaboration with the architect Renzo Piano, and “Caminantes” … Ayacucho, “No hay caminos hay que
caminar”… Andrey Tarkovskij, and “Hay que caminar” soñando (1986-1989), which work on micro-intervals
and on unusual local dispositions and movements of sound sources (Petazzi 1993), Nono’s Das atmende
Klarsein (1980-83) represents an interesting case of sound spatialisation, also thanks to the use of live
electronics, focusing on sound provenance and movement.

Musical spatiality, rooted in its structural and relational meaning, thus allows the imaginative potentiality
of sound matter to be articulated in a variety of ways. Many questions continue to arise in the aesthetic
debate on this topic. Is the spatial dimension of music a structural part of sound matter or of our
perception? Or is it purely metaphorical? Does it refer to invariant perceptual structures across different
epochs and cultures? What are the contextual differences? Can it contribute to the reflection on the
intersubjective forms of human perception and life? How can composers create a new awareness of
spatiality by working with sound matter? Musical spatiality continues to be a fertile field of study even
today, especially when approached through the fruitful interplay between different research fields, such as
aesthetics, architecture, ethnomusicology, musicology, and compositional practice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T.W. Adorno, Philosophie der Neue Musik, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1949.

A. Bertinetto, Il pensiero dei suoni. Temi di filosofia della musica, Milano, Mondadori, 2012.

G. Böhme, Architektur und Atmosphäre, München, Wilhelm Fink, 2006.

P. Boulez, Penser la musique aujourd’hui, Saint-Amand, Édition Gonthier, 1963.

E. Carli, Sulla spazialità nella musica, con una postilla di Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, ed. by M. Pierini,
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N. Di Stefano, The Spatiality of Sounds. From Sound-source Localization to Musical Spaces, “Aisthesis”, n.
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M.-E. Duchez, La répresentation spatio-verticale du caractère musical grave-aigu et l’élaboration de la notion

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S. Feld, Sound and Sentiment. Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression, Philadelphia,
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A. Melchiorre, Iannis Xenakis: continuo e discontinuo, numero e suono, da Pitagora ad Aristosseno, in Id.,
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C. Nussbaum, The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2007.

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L. Rognoni, Fenomenologia della musica radicale, Milano, Garzanti, 1974.

M. Schafer, The Tuning of the World, New York, Random House, 1977.

A. Schoenberg, Composition with Twelve Tones, in Style and Idea, New York, Philosophical Library, 1950.

R. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.

C. Serra, La rappresentazione tra paesaggio sonoro e spazio musicale, Milano, CUEM, 2005.

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C. Serra, Materiali sonori e regola percettiva, “Rivista di estetica”, 66 (2017): 118-132,

C. Serra, Come suono di natura. Metafisica della melodia nella Prima Sinfonia di Gustav Mahler, Teramo,
Galaad Edizioni, 2020.

S. Vizzardelli, Filosofia della musica, Roma, Laterza, 2007.

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HOW TO QUOTE THIS ENTRY

A. Salvestrini, Musical Spatiality, “International Lexicon of Aesthetics”, Spring 2024 Edition, URL =
[Link] DOI:
10.7413/18258630154.

Please note that this URL is fixed, since it belongs to ILAe’s archived edition. This allows readers to
quote a stable document for academic purposes.

This entry also belongs to the seventh volume of ILAe’s printed edition. Each issue of this edition
collects the ILAe’s Spring and Autumn online editions per year. The proper reference of the printed
edition is:

A. Salvestrini, Musical Spatiality, “International Lexicon of Aesthetics”, Vol. 7, Milano, Mimesis, 2025.