Bill Pirkle responded to me;

>>"Music does not have to "mean" anything!!!"
>
>You are right it does not have to.  As a string of pearls does not mean
>anything to an ape.  Indeed, some music does not mean anything at all.
>But surely some music was meant by the composer to mean something.  The
>2nd of the 4th is surely, at the very least, a struggle between power and
>gentleness.  The only question is the power and gentleness a metaphor for
>something else?

I think I disagree.  And how do you know that? Using the word "struggle"
above imparts some kind of program to this music.  People and armies and
forces "struggle".  Music does not.  Anthropomorphic attributions to music,
to me, are not only unnecessary but deceptive.  I don't think Beethoven had
any "real-world" struggle in mind when he wrote the 2nd movement to his 4th
piano concerto.  It's a very interesting piece of music from a sheerly
musical point-of-view.

Did Beethoven intend for me (and you) to "see" horse-drawn hearses and a
cortege when we listen to the 2nd movement of his 3rd symphony? I don't
think so.  Nor do I think he had such images in mind when composing it.
It's obviously a "funeral march" [he named it such] but other than that
there is no particular visual "program" to it.  It should REMIND one of
a funeral and -- more important -- the FEELINGS one has at a funeral.
It depicts no event.

Some one else has suggested that all music evokes images in the hearer's
mind.  I must be different then.  Most NON-PROGRAM music evokes FEELINGS in
my mind, not images.  And as a photographer, computer artist and theater
director, I'm a very visual person -- moreso than most.

The power of suggestion is at work here, I think.  As a boy, before I knew
that the French word 'Nuages' meant 'Clouds', I would listen to the Debussy
Nocturnes and NOT "see" clouds -- I didn't "see" anything.  I just loved
the music.  Then I learned Nuages = Clouds and even then I really never
"saw" clouds when I listened.  I still don't and yet it is one of my
favorite short pieces of music --BUT from a purely sonic standpoint.

Others, I suspect (in fact I know) see "clouds" because they feel that's
what the music is about.  They feel compelled on first hearing to see
clouds and do forever more.  That's fine, I guess.  As long as they don't
assume or expect ME to see clouds.

The progression:  Listen to music --> See a mental picture, just doesn't
hold for me.  Never has.  Nor do I ever look at a photograph or painting
and automatically "hear" music.  Never have, thank goodness.

I once taught Music Appreciation to high school level students for a couple
of years.  I studiously avoided the "what does this make you see" method.
I think I did my students a favor.

I pains me to see/hear people struggle to discern what, say, Beethoven
"had in mind" when he wrote his non-program music.  "What was he trying
to depict?" The answer is "nothing but the notes."

Music doesn't have to "mean" anything.

David Pitzer