In the early 1820s, music critics called attention to an innovative feature of certain Schubert Lieder: musical imagery in the piano accompaniment that both unifies the song and creates dramatic immediacy. Writers hailed this aspect of ‘Erlkönig’ (Op. 1) and ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ (Op. 2) in particular. The two songs’ main musical motifs – racing triplet rhythms evoking a galloping horse and a whirling sixteenth-note pattern evoking a spinning wheel – do more than provide unity and vivify the represented scene, however; they also powerfully contribute to the expression of changing emotions. The outer and inner worlds of the song persona(e) converge in, and are projected through, the piano accompaniment. This chapter examines the nature of musical imagery in Schubert Lieder, different ways that the musical motifs evolve, and the interpretive significance of those changes. The motif might be placed in new contexts, altered from within, fragmented, interrupted, or sounded with greater or lesser frequency, to the point of disappearing. Paradoxically, it might even evolve in meaning by resisting change. Songs analysed include ‘Erlkönig’, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, ‘Meeres Stille’, ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’, ‘Jägers Abendlied’, ‘Halt!’, ‘Gefrorne Tränen’, ‘Letzte Hoffnung’, ‘Im Dorfe’, ‘Der Wegweiser’ and ‘Die Stadt’.

Listening to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” may lead us to imagine a scene of an army charging ; seeing Margaret Thatcher on a silent TV screen may make us imagine the sound of her voice; seeing a feather moving on the surface of a hand might make us almost feel the stroke on our own hand. All these cases may be accounted for under the category of crossmodal imagery: the occurrence of a conscious mental image in a given sensory modality, caused by the presentation of an object in another modality. This chapter shows why crossmodal imagery should be distinguished from mere neural activation across the senses and internally generated imagery, and restricts its definition to cases in which the mental image in an unstimulated modality is caused by another sensory stimulus, and its contents constrained by this stimulus. This more precise category of crossmodal imagery challenges us to re-examine several accepted claims in the domain of imagination: The induction of mental imagery does not necessarily follow modal paths, daydreaming might not be internally but externally generated by what we hear or feel, and non-visual imagery, which is often considered less frequent, may prove easier to induce crossmodally through visual, rather than through nonvisual stimulus.

Musical imagery – the mental experience of music – is a common occurrence for both musical experts and nonexperts alike. A diverse range of experiences can be classified as musical imagery, from the replaying of a tune in a listener’s head after hearing it on the radio to a composer conjuring up the next notes of a new symphony. Overall, research in this domain has indicated that incidences of musical imagery often replicate a perceptual experience with a high degree of fidelity, and similar neural resources are recruited in both music perception and imagery. The diversity and fidelity of musical imagery experiences can be affected by expertise, suggesting imaginative processes related to music may be developed through dedicated, long-term practice. Both everyday and expert experiences of musical imagery can vary widely in terms of both intentionality and modality of recall, with some episodes comprising aspects of auditory, motor, and visual imagery. Implications for our understanding of creativity and suggestions for cross-disciplinary approaches to integrating psychological research findings with creative practice are discussed.