--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "William H. Rosar" <bc178@lafn.org>
To: ams-l@virginia.edu
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:58:21 -0500
Subject: Re: happiness and surprise
>Why is there so much discussion of so-called "emotional response to
music" when
>there is not a corresponding amount relative to other art forms (e.g.
painting,
>sculpture, dance, poetry, etc.)? I am reminded of a wisecrack made by
>Stravinsky where he complained about how people use music like a
>"drug," with no
>regard to its own properties (properties, I might add, that can be
perceived,
>not just responded to, unlike most drugs).
>Since Leonard B. Meyer much to do has been made of the importance of
emotional
>response to music, as though it were the sine qua non of musical value.
As I
>have posted here previously Meyer's argument has been largely refuted on
>philosophical grounds alone by Malcolm Budd in his book _Music and
>the Emotions:
>The Philosophical Theories_ (1985), Ch. 8 "Meaning, Emotion and
Information in
>Music."
Just a tangential (emotional) response to Bill Rosar's AMS-L posting; in
a long-ago upper-level undergraduate seminar given by Siegmund Levarie,
the question of what made a good musical work was posed to us, and
several of the students -- we were young, OK?-- still obviously made
their judgment of the work's artistic worth contingent on their
emotional response to it.
Professor Levarie's response to *that* response was swift, vehement, and
inimitable, and probably literally frightened that idea right out of us
for the rest of our lives. ;)
Theresa Muir
theresamuir@juno.com
Any fool can handle a crisis, it's this day-to-day that wears you out.
Anton Chekhov
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