Have you ever wondered why we succumb to various, very often strong emotions while listening to music? Why do some works make us happy, others make us sad, still others lift our spirits, and sometimes even a musical compositiois scary?

Is there a reason why George Frideric Handel used the key of D major for the famous "Hallelujah" choir from the "Messiah" , and why Antonio Vivaldi used the key of F minor for the "Winter" violin concerto? Why does the use of certain intervals evoke the same feelings in the listener, regardless of whether they were used in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach or in a Polish pop song from the 1950s?

What do "Lamento della Ninfa" by Claudio Monteverdi and the well-known standard "My Funny Valentine" by Richard Rodgers have in common?

Are the impressions that accompany us while comnnecting with music only our subjective feeling? Or maybe there are ways to evoke the right emotions in the listener, and composers use their secret code called musical rhetoric?

I will try to answer these intriguing questions during the lecture.

Zbigniew Pilch