Andrys Basten wrote:

>Actually words don't express emotion nearly as well as music can.  Words
>are stoppers.  They can try to express emotion.  The truest form would
>probably not be a word at all but something like Aaaaeeeiiiiiiieeee.

I agree with Andrys 100% on this. I find it amazing that it can even be
debated that music is a language that expresses an emotion.

>You don't have to define the emotion for it to exist.

You also don't need to glean exactly the emotion that the composer was
feeling, either.  Generally, it is possible.  Sad, love, anger, broad
emotions, yes, I know exactly that in the Largo of the Shostakovich trio,
for instance, DSCH wasn't expressing emotions of joy, elation, happiness.
That music is sad, period.  But going further, sometimes I think a composer
will write music expressing an emotion that he or she feels, but doesn't
necessarily intend us to understand.  It is more subliminal than that.

I would add that on our end of it, the listener's end, the emotions we
receive through musical communication are sharp and defined and not at all
vague.  And certainly they incite emotional feelings more strongly than any
other medium, and I'm not making this up, refer to the famous Psychology
Today study that found that a huge majority of people received the
strongest psycological and emotional feelings from a musical phrase than
from anything else.

David Runnion
www.serafinotrio.com