Thomas Wulf wrote:

>as for your actual question: well, while I love many composers, who
>have written music that speaks of the world, like Mahler or Ravel, I
>deep inside hold, well not a grugde against this but at least I think
>I favour the idea of pure music, 'unhindered' by lowly matters.

While I would agree for the most part, for me, when I think of late
Mahler, especially the Adagio from the 10th, I do not think of music
that speaks of the world.

>But even when listening to 'pure abstract' composers, like Bach, I don't
>think that they evoke thought; their music, like all music will lead our
>brain along the time axis.  but I wouldn't want to call the result
>'thoughts'.  'Feelings', yes, even 'ideas', sometimes, but 'thoughts',
>no I don't think so.

Yet, I find that Bach can speak to my emotion as well as to my thinking.
While I have lost the ability after all of these years, there was a time
when I was so immersed in his style that I could, on occasion, follow
the logic of his thinking from note to note as I would listen...even if
it might only be in the simpliest of his works.  I think about his
intellect and "thought" process where he could, upon hearing a tune,
recognize its possibilities as a fugue subject...perhaps like a chess
player can look at a game and figure out the possibilities.

>But maybe you are using a broader meaning of 'thought'?  Maybe music can
>or even must muster a 'syntax of emotion'?  Like it may make use of and
>command bodily motions?

Again, I do wonder about the notions of thought, emotion and bodily
motion or biology being tied in together.  Is emotion a physical
manifestation of an intellectual response to an event?

>Well, our thoughts are limited by our language, but this limitation is
>not absolute.  Instead we can transcended them especially by giving new
>meaning to our word and also by inventing new words and phrases.  Also
>by borrowing them from other langauges.  This must have been obvious to
>Sapir and Whorf as well - after all no language could have evolved
>otherwise..

But can we articulate, in words, the essence of a piece of music?

>PS: I'm still wondering why it is that I feel so much better about the
>idea of absolute music and still listen mainly to the other 'impure'
>type??  Maybe my heart just works better than my head?  ;-)

I believe that all music can be absolute, if we choose to listen to it
that way.  I find that the words in vocal music distract me from the
music.  I also like listening to film music more, when I have never seen
the film.

Karl