Edson Tadeu Ortolan wrote:

>>People!!!  All this discussion would be available if the music was capable
>>to represent or to imitate or to paint or to express the Nature, the
>>Sensations, the Emotions, the Thoughts, and ALL EXTRA-MUSICAL THINGS!!!

and Joseph Sowa responds:

>Is emotion really extra-musical? One has emotion when they speak
>in English; it isn't "extra-English." If so, then why is emotion
>extra-musical? Classical music may not be universal, but it is MOST
>DEFINITELY a language.  Therefore, it can express anything.

The idea that works of art are essentially only about themselves, as it
were, is an odd one, but one which has been put forth by some very creative
people.  The novelist Vladimir Nabokov said something along these lines
about his novels.  Many, not all, contemporary poets take the same point
of view about their work.  I must summon the chutzpah to admit that this
claim seems like a conceit, and nobody is sincere about it.  Emotion in
music seems to me near universal.  In fact my personal concept of Western
classical music is that it is a remarkable meeting of mathematics and
emotion.  Collette referred to J.S.  Bach as the "celestial sewing
machine", but untruer words were never written.  I recall some of the
Goldberg Variations which to me, express something close to despair.
Likewise full of emotion are the Mozart Quintet K 516, and the Bartok
Divertimento - we all have our lists and these are just three examples
which come to mind as I sit here in my office.  Now, there may be a HIGHER
WISDOM which dismisses my reactions as naive and based on ignorance.  I
am reminded of a book on mind and consciousness I read recently which
contemptuously dismissed "common sense" concepts concerning the mind as
"folk psychology".  Perhaps I am a folk listener.  What is really of
interest to me is the manner in which emotion is, as it were, coded into
the set of directions known as the score.  How do composers do that?
Perhaps some of the composers who belong to this list might wish to reply!!
Bernard Chasan

Folk listener and fysics person

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University