Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Before that, I doubt that anybody worried their heads over the distinction,
>or if they did, they came down decidedly in favor of "referential" music,
>as in the case of the religious music of the Renaissance and the Baroque.

I want to point out that some music seems to STRIVE to deliver -- concepts,
moods, thoughts, impressions.  A case in point, the Shostakovich 10th
Symphony, which I saw in San Francisco this Friday.  Much of his music
seems burdened (in the sense of "freighted") with implication.  In his
case, with implications that would be politically dangerous to put into
words.  My thought as I was leaving was that if the music of the Renaissance
and the Baroque periods carried religious significance, then Shostakovich's
music seems to say that there is hell, right here on earth.

Dave Wolf