[log in to unmask] writes:

>Regardless of where this feeling is coming from, the significant thing to
>me is that the composer feel the emotion at the time of composition.

Actually, I only agree in part.  I am a student in composition at the
Montreal conservatoire, and one topic we actually fell upon recently
was this question about emotion in music.  It is a fact that someone who
masters the many arts of composition is fully able a creating the illusion
of emotion without really "feeling" anything at the time of putting pen to
paper, it has always been so.  But a bad composer who actually is more
emotionally implicated in his work will not necessarily transmit his
emotion better.  Emotion is very secondary when it comes down to writing
good music.  And since not all members of the audience have the same
receptive memories towards different forms of music, whether you
feel emotion or not during composition truly is only a slight bonus.
Transmitting emotion is like playing russian roulette, you never know.
Mastering your own form of composition, thus liberating any idea you want
to transmit to your audience is far more important, the rest is luck.

Nick