While I agree with Dave Pitzer's rant about finding extra-musical
meanings in a piece, the following statement is certainly not true.

>But his piano concertos, piano sonatas, symphonies, etc.  were certainly
>not programmatic and it is silly (in my opinion) to play the game of
>discerning what scene or emotion he was trying to express in these
>compositions.

The "Pastoral" Symphony is, of course, programmatic.  I can't help it, bird
calls and thunderstorms cause me to think of nothing more than bird calls
and thunderstorms.

Eric James