Jim Tobin writes, somewhat in reply to me:

>Part of my own fascination with music--and its centrality in my life,
>more than with any of the other arts--is its inherent connection with
>time (starting with its most basic elements, like tempo).  Since I do
>not read music well enough to make out--visually--anything but the
>smallest structures in a piece of music, virtually my entire experience
>of music is as-performed nonstop, except that with modern technology
>I can repeat a recorded performance.  In consequence of that, memory
>and reflection (as well as the analysis of other people) permit me to
>"hear a piece whole," so to speak, and to anticipate what is ahead in
>a performance.  But it is the sensuous or exciting immediacy, moments
>of ecstasy, rather than a grasp of the overall architecture of a piece,
>that keeps me coming back for more.  If I lose that, perhaps because of
>overexposure to a piece, I lose the piece.
>
>When I reflect on the experience of listening to music, time also comes
>readily to mind.  Even the longest piece of music can be heard in a
>remarkably limited amount of time.  It is there, and then it is over.
>Life is also strictly temporary, on any interpretation.  There is sadness
>in that thought.  I am convinced that some music can and does actually
>express that particular sadness.  It brings reality home and perhaps
>helps a listener cope with that reality, because even what is momentary
>can be intensely worthwhile.  (A meta-narrative, to use Steve's phrase,
>not necessarily one he would endorse, to be sure.)

I guess what appeals most to me about music is its transforming nature.
At its best, it transforms itself (at least in longer forms) and thus
provides a metaphor for the psychic transformation of the listener.  I
don't think it necessary for a listener to be aware of how the composer
goes about this, but I do believe a composer (especially of works longer
than a 4-minute song) does need to go about it.  There are, of course,
wonderful moments in great works.  One of my favorites is the introduction
to the fourth movement of Brahms's First Symphony, with that great horn
call.  *That* sends me to ecstasy.  But even more powerful is the varied
reappearance of these ideas in the movement proper.  It widens the context
of the moment, it expands the borders of the ecstatic.  Torke, it seems
to me, likes toffee -- a lot of toffee, morning, noon, and night, all
the time -- and he never seems to tire of it.  It's like someone passing
their entire life -- birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, and death
-- in a single room.  I consider Torke's art, despite his talent, extremely
limited, rather than liberating or expansive.

Steve Schwartz