Date of Award

2026

Keywords

Mozart, emotions, emotional coding, key characteristics, musical-rhetorical figures, topoi, performance

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

School

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

First Supervisor

Jonathan Paget

Second Supervisor

Stewart Smith

Third Supervisor

Craig Speelman

Abstract

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of emotional coding in the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), with particular attention to the ways in which text-driven musical patterns influence both vocal and instrumental works. The study draws on 18th-century theories of key characteristics, musical-rhetorical figures, and topoi, compositional devices that carried emotional implications for contemporary listeners. These codes are first examined in two of Mozart’s operas, Le Nozze di Figaro (KV492) and Don Giovanni (KV527), where the setting of text to music provides a framework for associating compositional choices with emotion. Findings from the analyses are then applied to three contemporaneous instrumental hausmusik works—Piano Trio in B-flat major (KV502), Sonata for Piano in A major with the accompaniment of Violin (KV526), and Adagio in B minor (KV540)—to test whether Mozart’s emotional coding can be identified in the absence of text. The study incorporates a practice-led component, in which performances of these works were recorded before and after analytical engagement, enabling examination of how awareness of emotional coding can shape interpretive decisions. To empirically assess the communicability of these codes, a Listening Task was conducted with a wide range of participants. Using both categorical and dimensional models of emotion, participants identified perceived and induced emotional states in recorded excerpts of the hausmusik works. Results reveal consistent correlations between Mozart’s compositional devices, the emotional implications of text, and listener perception, while also demonstrating that knowledge of these codes informs performance outcomes. By uniting musicological analysis, empirical evaluation, and practice-led research, this thesis contributes a systematic framework for identifying Mozart’s emotional code. It also offers insights for historically sensitive performance practice and highlights avenues for future research into the emotional codes of other composers.

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.25958/a3yy-sf45