Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I find amazing that some people have to believe that great art is created
>in hot blood.  We see a lot of bad art which is painfully sincere (which
>implies something other than passion is required), and, anyway, logically
>there are four choices: the previous two, bad art from cold blood, and
>good art from cold blood.  Writing music is an amazingly intricate craft,
>among other things.  I wouldn't be surprised to find a composer who
>calculated so well (rather than felt so deeply) that the music he wrote
>moved others.  To paraphrase George Burns, in art sincerity is everything;
>if you can fake that, you've got it made.

I don't really disagree (I just enjoy replying to you:).  But we can
add that any creative activity is an emotional experience, and when the
creation has as much intrinsic greatness as we find in great music, the
experience must have been that much more emotinally intense.  The emotions
felt by the composer, though, probably had nothing to do with the emotions
stirred by the piece in most listeners.  For example, Brahms probably felt
deep emotion while composing the four last songs (Op.  120), but in the end
these emotions were probably closer to joy and elation (that he achieved
such a perfect and expressive peak in the genre; a triumph) than to the
emotions these pieces express to listeners (more like desolation and
tragedy).

Ulvi
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