[log in to unmask] writes:

>Isn't ecstasy pleasure, intense pleasure? However, I can't listen like that
>all the time.  I mean, there's a reason why I listen to the St. Matthew
>Passion or the Ring once every couple of years.  I'm just not strong enough
>for anything more frequent.  Furthermore, I don't live on that high a level
>all the time, or even most of the time. ...

Which brings up a point in my own life in listening to music at various
times.  For me the ecstasy comes from my own life-condition; the music does
not in and of itself give it to me.  I remember listening to Beethoven 2nd
Symphony on my car radio(crappy radio and speakers at that) on my way to
a family engagement.  After listening to the first movement, I went inside
my sister's house not to socialize with family but got her portable radio
headset and continue listen to the 2nd movement on to the end.  I really
enjoyed it.  This also happen when I was in the car listening to Beethoven
6th sym, feeling supreme joy welling up inside of me.  Another example was
Mozart's 29th esp 2 movement as I was resting in my car and felt my body
being massage by the music as it seem to penetrate my inner being.
Needless to say, these experiences are very rare for me.  These are not the
same sensations of enjoying and getting pleasure from music.  Sometimes I
try to reproduce the experience by replaying the exact recording, yet it is
like relive your past--futile at best.

In every case I started out feeling joy or it came on suddenly as I was
listening--the quality of interpretation was of secondary importance.  Also
I heard things (I have a conductive hearing loss-wear 2 hearing aids) in
that inner state that I could not hear on repeated listening.  There are
many other examples but if I can relate one thing, it is this:  The music
does not have to be the great grandeur music that speaks to humanity but
is usually compose by recognized geniuses of music.  There are many other
examples I can give but it would be redundant and I have to leave but I
wonder if the major composers felt moved within when these ideas of music
came to them.  In other words, their portal to joy was the music, where
the average person may never feel this joy in listening to music.

Glenn