"Appraisal Responses" to Surprising Events in Mozart's Viennese Piano Concertos

Jay Smith, University of North Texas

David Huron's book, Sweet Anticipation (2007), provides an empirically -- and biologically -- based take on expectation in music. Although Huron explores different response systems in his ITPRA theory, William Benjamin (2007) criticized the book for its "unconvincing" application of appraisal responses, and Giorgio Biancorosso (2008) criticized its lack of "fine-grained" analyses of music examples. In this presentation, I answer these criticisms by applying Huron's appraisal responses to expectation-defying harmonic events in excerpts from Mozart's Viennese piano concertos.

Mozart's Viennese piano concertos contain numerous expectation-defying harmonic ev'ents that most likely cause the listener to experience negative prediction responses and surprised reaction responses, but positive appraisal responses that invoke a sense of satisfaction in retrospect. In K. 453, I, in G major, a number of surprising events occur. For example, the dominant harmony that ends the exposition resolves deceptively to begin the development section. Here, a listener would likely be surprised at the event but would recognize the deceptive resolution. After further thought, a well-informed listener would realize the event's function as a modulation to a new key area that begins the development section. Other surprising events in the passage include enharmonically reinterpreted dominant seventh harmonies as augmented sixth harmonies and unexpected 6/4 chord functions.

Tonal music has the potential to defy expectations because of its regularities. When music surprises us, we wish to understand why it surprised us and why it is still coherent. Our appraisal responses to harmonic surprises bridge the gap between confusion and understanding.