Continuation of the topic from the article “Sociology of Music”

So, again, the famous aria with a list of ladies seduced by Don Juan.

I would like to remind you of the information from school physics about the Doppler effect.

If there is a pair: a wave emitter (source) and their receiver, and they move relative to each other along a straight line connecting them, then the frequency of vibrations, sound or light waves, received by the receiver will vary depending on the direction and on the speed of their approach or separation. If the source is moving TOWAEDS a static receiver in the laboratory frame of reference, then the frequency of the waves for the receiver will increase and the greater the magnitude of the approach velocity.

If, on the contrary, the source of the waves is MOVING AWAY from the receiver, the frequency of the received waves will decrease.

In a generally similar way, this will happen if you move not the source – the emitter, but the receiver of the waves.

(I will not talk about the so–called “Transverse (relativistic) Doppler effect” here, since this phenomenon follows from the Special Theory of Relativity and was experimentally confirmed in the Ives-Stilwell experiments and, to some extent, in the Mössbauer experiments).

Let’s imagine that we are standing on the platform of a railway station and a train is rushing past us without stopping. When it reach us, the driver presses the horn button and holds it down for a while. What will we hear?

At the first moment, when the locomotive caught up with us, the NATURAL sound of the horn, as it really is. But as it moves away from us, the pitch will drop in accordance with the described effect.

Now listen to Leporello’s arias after the words: “There are marquises and princesses, of all classes, of all ages…” Here, these “OF ALL AGES”, repeated twice. There are four notes with a gradual decrease in pitch.

Doppler effect!

And immediately before that, an excerpt listing “philistines and noblewomen” – the sound of a fast-moving train is clearly audible. Then there is a deceleration and stop, people get out and enter the cars, children run in and out, jumping on and off the boards.

All this CAN be HEARD in the melody of the aria..

Pavel Chervinsky

Ildar Abdrazakov

Both are in Italian

Boris Gmyrya in Russian!!!

Fyodor Shalyapim in Italian

Why this demonstration? To what was said in the previous note: The UNPREDICTABILITY of listeners’ reactions to a well-defined idea of the composer himself!

Mozart DESCRIBES ONE THING musically, according to the opera’s libretto.

BUT we HEAR SOMETHING completely DIFFERENT!

Again, this is facilitated by mental alienation from the words of the aria and from the content of the opera!

In the mentioned passage, I heard the obvious sound of the rapidly rotating wheels of the train, their pounding (Similar to Sviridov’s “Time, Forward!”) and the retreating horns of the locomotive.

Of course, this is JUST MY “hearing” of the whole aria.

But it would be interesting to check SOCIOLOGICALLY if it’s just MINE?

Or will it coincide with other listeners’ similar “hearing”?

Faciant meliora potentes.

7 IV 2025