Walter Meyer wrote:

>I happen to agree that music, like beauty, is its own excuse for being.  I
>don't agree, however, that it's juvenile poppycock for someone to see tales
>in the music s/he also hears.  I believe Beethoven himself is supposed to
>have said on learning of Napoleon's death that he had written the music for
>that occasion eighteen years before.

I went too far in using the words 'poppycock' and perhaps even 'juvenile'.
But I still feel disheartened with attempts to ascribe a program to
no-program music.  Perhaps it would be best for me to say that I don't
understand such attempts.

>I believe Beethoven himself is supposed to have said on learning of
>Napoleon's death that he had written the music for that occasion eighteen
>years before.

This paraphrase of what Beethoven supposedly said refers particularly to
the so-called "Funeral March" from the "Eroica".  I don't think it should
be taken too seriously as I think Beethoven probably did not mean it
literally.  (I wasn't present, of course.)

At any rate, I do not intend or wish to insult anyone (not on this occasion
at least).  And perhaps I'm missing something by not "hearing" all manner
of programmatic material in the music I listen too.  I was taught (I should
say that I *learned*) to listen to music without by my father very early in
my life and he never mentioned any program material.  Perhaps he felt I was
too young and inexperienced in life to understand, much less appreciate,
the programs of even blatantly program music.  So, by the time I was
interested enough to pick up the albums and turn them over to read the
liner notes, I already liked (or did not like) the music as pure music.
And I don't recall having any new insight or an increased appreciation for
music I already like after reading about its program -- if any.

In short, I do not, for example, "see" or visualize a river when I listen
to The Moldau.  I do not see swans when I listen to Swan Lake.  Perhaps I'm
missing something here.  BUT, at the same time, I do not envision anything
when I listen to, say, Mozart's 23rd piano concerto or Beethoven's 2nd
symphony -- as apparently many/most others do!  (I picked these two
examples almost at random, incidentally.)

As a corollary, I have never recently gained a sudden appreciation for
any piece of music after having learned that the composer was "in love" or
"on his death bed" or "rejected in love" or some such, when he wrote it.
I disliked Wagner's music long before I learned what a miserable human
being he was in his personal life.

What any composer "had in mind" (if anything!) while writing a particular
piece of music is of little to no consequence to me.  I don't attempt, nor
am I driven, to discern any sub-conscious program.  I'm just lucky, I
guess.

Dave Pitzer