Emotional processing in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonata No. 8 in A minor, k. 310, Presto.

Outside of my interest in empathetic neural activity, I researched on emotional processing for sometime and, after some guidance from my professor and pedagogical researcher Huu Mai, I decided to write my first research paper in which I compare Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonata No. 8 in A minor, k. 310 with the neural activity involved in emotional processing.
Overview
According to S. Rachman, emotional processing is ‘‘a process whereby emotional disturbances are absorbed, and decline to the extent that other experiences and behavior can proceed without disruption’’ (51). He explains that “if individuals were unable to absorb or process emotional disturbances, then they would operate at a constantly high level of arousal with so much intrusion from their feelings that it would be difficult to concentrate on the daily tasks of living” (Rachman 51). If we would associate the amount of disturbance with the length of musical themes or patterns, then the shortening of them would represent the process that S. Rachman describes. In turn, the chaotic nature of certain themes would represent the arousal caused by the inability to process emotions.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonata No. 8 in A minor, k. 310 presents musical decisions that could be interpreted as representing the processing of a certain emotion. This piece is one of the composer’s only two sonatas composed in a minor key. This piece was composed in Paris in 1778 and is associated with his mother’s death, as it happened on the 3rd of July of that same year. There is a vast group of composers that use form and harmony to express a certain emotion and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the 3rd movement of his Sonata No. 8 in A minor, k. 310 would fall into that group. The choice of minor over major and every time said choice is emphasized makes it inevitable to compare the structure of the piece to the process of emotional processing mentioned before. This would make perfect sense due to the fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably either taking care of his deteriorating mother before her death or mourning the loss of her.