Musical Instrument’s Timbre as the Semantic Dominant in Sound Design of a Film. Violoncello

Abstract

Modern art criticism has given sufficient insight into the principles of introducing music in the diegetic and non-diegetic space of a film. However, one aspect of the vast relationship between music and cinema dramaturgy is still understudied, namely the timbre of musical instruments or singing voices. Timbre became the object of close musicological studies in the second half of the XXth century, as new compositional techniques and artistic trends in musical creativity, sonorics in particular, came into play. But mere physical characteristics of the timbre cannot give an exhaustive idea of its significance in art. A musical and aesthetic assessment of the sound, the timbre’s quality is necessary. The article addressing the sound aspect of cinematic works focuses on the expressive and aesthetic side of a musical instrument’s timbre as an important component of an audio-visual image. The analysis aims at revealing the semantics of a musical timbre, directly related to the cultural context of the filming period, the director’s inner world, perceptual psychology, cognitive processes and the viewer’s associations when watching a film.
The topic is considered with specific reference to the cello’s timbre, given the significance of this instrument not only for the musical art but also for cinema, especially the auteur film direction. The study of semantics and peculiarities of psychological and aesthetic perception of the cello’s and other musical instruments’ timbres seems to be a rather promising trend in modern research devoted to the versatile range of issues related to the sound in cinema. The timbral aspect of the film sound enhances our insight into the performance potential of a musical score and its role in characterization and rendering the dramaturgic pattern of a film.