Roma Music and Emotion

In Roma Music and Emotion, author Filippo Bonini Baraldi forges a much-needed theory of music, emotion, and empathy from an anthropological perspective, addressing the failure of the prevailing psychological theories on music and emotion to account for non-western musical cultures. Bonini Baraldi, having spent years among the Hungarian Roma of rural Transylvania, presents compelling ethnographic descriptions of their weddings, funerals, community celebrations, and intimate family gatherings.

Based on extensive field research and informed by hypotheses drawn from the cognitive sciences, the anthropology of art, and aesthetics, Roma Music and Emotion analyzes why Roma musicians cry along with music and how they arouse specific feelings in their audiences. Translated by Margaret Rigaud and written in clear prose, Roma Music and Emotion makes an important ethnomusicological contribution to theoretical discussions of the relationship between music and emotion.