Edgar W Beach Jr wrote:

>Karl Miller wrote:
>
>>...  My experience of the use of the word in music is to suggest that
>>intellectual music speaks mainly to the mind and not to the spirit.
>>For me, Poulenc was a great intellect.  For me, his music speaks to both
>>the mind and the spirit, but, it seems to me, that his craft (intellect)
>>is likely to be lost on many, since the music will have, for many, and
>>direct appeal to the spirit.
>
>Yes thank you, it does help.  Yet it doesn't specifically address my
>question which asked for an example.  I know now that "intellectual"
>music, in quotes or not, appeals to the mind and that there is music
>that appeals to the spirit (the soul maybe).  What I would like to know
>(if it can be answered): Can you or anyone give me a specific example
>of a piece of music that appeals solely to the mind?

I think that would be a subjective notion. For me, one of the most
intellectual pieces (however, not particularly profound) both in terms
of its intent and how I respond to it, is John Cage's 4 minutes and 33
seconds.  While one might say that the silence or whatever might occur,
could address the spirit, for me, it is more of an intellectual statement.
My approach to that work is reflective of something one of my teachers
once said about Cage, "perhaps his major contribution will be not what
he has written, but how he has changed the way we think about music."

When I listen to a work like the Boulez Structures, I suppose I could
think that the piece is an intellectual exercise.  However, I think
about what it might have been like being young and living in Europe
through the Wars.  For me, the reasons for war are usually economic,
(rational) but to get the people to buy into it, we usually look towards
selling it to their emotions.  In some ways, I see that particular work
as being a very emotional reaction against emotion. It might sound like
a contradition, but my emotional response to Structures, is, at times,
sad, in that I find it as an attempt to avoid appealing to basic emotions,
yet in another way, it almost seems like a noble effort of someone trying
to find meaning and reason, when the recent past history could be seen
as being devoid of reason.

Getting back to your question...

intellectual...probably the Cage 4 minutes and 33 seconds...or many of
the other works where he used different methodologies to say the same
thing.

Karl