I tend to agree with Jon Gallant, who reports:

>I enjoy almost all works by almost all composers.  ...This is not true
>of novels, poems, plays or paintings, and least of all of films.  Music
>is different.  Does anyone know why?" Like George, my tastes are very
>catholic, extending from medieval to modern, and including folk and jazz.
>
>I have a tentative theory as to why.  I think it has to do with time.
>Of course, the experience of all artistic creations stops time, in a
>way.  But music ORGANIZES time at a more elemental level than any other
>art.  We don't keep time to visual art.  We don't (really) recognize the
>beat in a novel or a film.  In poetry, of course, there is a beat, but
>it is analagous to unaccompanied song, a minimal example of music---and
>even there, in song poetry is combined with the time-organization of
>melody.  Nothing in any art beside music creates the richness of MULTIPLE
>lines of organized time, as the last example illustrates at a simple
>level.

Reading and listening are two very different processes.  Reading requires
a very active involvement in the experience.  The reader must create the
voice he is hearing as he reads.  As I read "East of Eden" I can hear a
much different voice than when I read my book about plate tectonics (I
read a work of fiction and nonfiction each day).  Each also requires a
different kind of invollvement in the process of decoding the material.
Once the author has written the words he cannot change of interpret them,
it is up to the reader.  Another factor in the process is the reader's
readiness.  As the reader develops a broader perspective to bring to the
work he changes the process.  I recently re-read "Moby Dick" which as
an undergraduate I didn't appreciate because I couldn't bring to it
perspectives I developed later.  For example, I didn't realize the name
Ishmael means 'outsider' nor that Ahab was a Don Quixote with an attitude.
I appreciated it much more this time.  As I told friends, I found a new
translation.

The experience of music is much different.  Music has to be interpreted,
performed in order for our invovlement.  The performer can change the
music because music is more than black marks on white paper.  The listener
is affected by the musician's interpretation so much that, as has been
noted, a different performance/recording can change the listener's
perceptio.  The listener must bring to music a very different kind of
mental process which even affects a different region of the brain.  He
doesn't create the voice because it is being created for him.  He may
be merely hearing the music rather than listening to it but he is affected
by the music just the same.  This is the principal upon which Muzak is
based.  Listening is a much more active process than hearing, similar
but not the same as reading.  A a completely different sensory process
is taking place and so a different means of decoding is necessary.

Appreciating Bruckner (who I used to think was the first minimalist
composer and works were merely long versions of Bolero) requires a
different perspective similar to that which I later brought to "Moby
Dick".  Appreciating Bruckner also requires a different perspective than
appreciating Mozart or Beethoven.  Appreciating Mahler carries this
process to another level so that you have to hear Bruckner's footsteps,
especially in early Mahler.

Finally, you hope if you're still with me, reading and listening to music
are both emotional experiences, even if you are reading nonfiction (I
tend to think of fiction as rather virtual reality).  If, for any reason,
the reader/listener is unable to experience the emotional aspect s/he
will not be able to appreciate the works.  The composer/author can encode
the emotion but it must be decoded in order for understanding.  That is,
either process requires feedback between the the sender and the reciever.

So it goes.

Stumpf