I am responding to a reply by B.  Chasan to David Steward.  Basically, I
agree with Mr.  Chasan.  I have a MA in Music Theory and a composite Ph.D
in musicology, which is unimportant except to add credulity to my saying
that I am fairly conversant with musical forms.  However, I seldom listen
to from when I listen to classical music.  I know it's there, and often I
can follow it aurally if I wish (but I often can't, and I frequently doubt
those who say that they can; form is much easier to discern with a score).
In a museum when I see a Cezanne that strikes me, it is the painting, the
personal, subjective experience that I have with the painting that I value.
I am sometimes able, in addition, to see relationships of forms and his
interesting experiments with color and perspective; I can analyze planes
and brush strokes (I am aware of these things because I have learned about
them).  I know that they are the ingredients and intellectual sub-structure
of the painting and that they are, therefore, important, but I know they
may also be found in paintings that do not strike me.  Music, at least for
me, is the same.  I, of course, cannot know what another person hears, but
I suppose that I respond to the same beauty in Brahms and Mahler as does
someone with a less technical background.  I think, at least I hope, that
my background allows me a greater understanding of the music to which I am
reacting, but if the music doesn't strike me as beautiful, I doubt I'll
care enough to analyze its form.  If it does strike me as beautiful,
analysis reveals many things of interest and gives me much insight, but it
doesn't make the music more or less beautiful.  I have told my students
that a doctor reacts the same way to a pretty face as does any other man;
the fact that he could, if asked, discuss the musclature and caranial
structure of the face has little to do with his reaction to it.

Roy Ellefsen <[log in to unmask]>