# What can’t music express?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc…" -Igor Stravinsky

A curious opinion, and one that I doubt even Stravinsky really believed. For most of us, music can express all sorts of emotions, states of mind, even physical situations.

My question: What is it that music can _not _express, at least in a way that would be generally understood by people familiar with the music's traditions?


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

KenOC said:


> "I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc…" -Igor Stravinsky
> 
> A curious opinion, and one that I doubt even Stravinsky really believed. For most of us, music can express all sorts of emotions, states of mind, even physical situations.
> My question: What is it that music can _not _express, at least in a way that would be generally understood by people familiar with the music's traditions?


Good question, KenOC - and rather appropriate to the recent discussion ob Beethoven symphonies.....
I tend to agree with Stravinsky - that music is sound. period...

however the nature of sound, acoustics and its properties can lead the listener in all sorts of directions, which may be, rightly, or wrongly, interpreted as expressing something extra-musical....

I post a famous quote on the subject:

Toscanini - regarding the First mvt of Beethoven Symphony "Eroica"
"To some it is Napoleon, to some it is a philosophical struggle, to me it is allegro con brio."
Arturo Toscanini


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

It cannot represent a physical object, it can describe it, but it cannot actually be the object itself.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Since the time Stravinsky (ghost)wrote the above statement (the 1930s) right up until today, it has been the tendency to approach this question from the standpoint of music’s formal features, and to figure out if and how music’s expressive content can inhere in these formal features. Like Stravinsky, I imagine (though I’m happy to be wrong about this) that many of us are inclined to say that anything music might be thought to express beyond pure sound can only be accomplished by association—for example, that music expresses sadness only because composers and listeners have agreed on certain arbitrary conventions (minor chords and keys, certain melodic shapes, certain patterns of dynamics and tempo, etc.) as signifying sadness, and not because of any inherent property of chords, keys, melodic shapes, and so on. But music’s content, like the content of any medium whatsoever, depends far more on interpretation (both the composer’s and the listener’s) than it does on formal features. Composers before Stravinsky might have acknowledged that music has content only by association, but they almost certainly would have questioned the importance of the word “only.” It is primarily in the twentieth century and onward that composers and listeners have obsessed over what is “inherent” in music. So my answer, anyway, is that if music can’t express something, it is almost entirely because of the limitations we have chosen to put on our interpretive habits.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Whatever Trout Mask Replica was trying to express.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eschbeg said:


> Since the time Stravinsky (ghost)wrote the above statement (the 1930s) right up until today, it has been the tendency to approach this question from the standpoint of music's formal features, and to figure out if and how music's expressive content can inhere in these formal features. Like Stravinsky, I imagine (though I'm happy to be wrong about this) that many of us are inclined to say that anything music might be thought to express beyond pure sound can only be accomplished by association-for example, that music expresses sadness only because composers and listeners have agreed on certain arbitrary conventions (minor chords and keys, certain melodic shapes, certain patterns of dynamics and tempo, etc.) as signifying sadness, and not because of any inherent property of chords, keys, melodic shapes, and so on. But music's content, like the content of any medium whatsoever, depends far more on interpretation (both the composer's and the listener's) than it does on formal features. Composers before Stravinsky might have acknowledged that music has content only by association, but they almost certainly would have questioned the importance of the word "only." It is primarily in the twentieth century and onward that composers and listeners have obsessed over what is "inherent" in music. So my answer, anyway, is that if music can't express something, it is almost entirely because of the limitations we have chosen to put on our interpretive habits.


There is the sound of the music that definitely evokes states of mind within the listeners. There tends to be intersubjectivity on those states evoked, but those are not definite.

So music DOES stimulate the mind, so it expresses what it needs to for a particular individual.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Stravinsky would say it expresses nothing, his music is some of the most diverse in terms of what it expresses in a particular individual.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> It cannot represent a physical object, it can describe it, but it cannot actually be the object itself.


How can music describe a physical object?


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The only emotional situation I can think is the hate.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I'm not sure if it's a valid answer, but... shame?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Dimace said:


> The only emotional situation I can think is the hate.


Well, there's the _Dance of the Knights_ from Prokofiev's _Romeo and Juliet_. The Montagues and the Capulets get together for an evening of merriment. Not suitable for Valentine's Day!


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Anyone think music can express political opinion?
It portrays class difference in Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the sketches of the rich Jew and and the poor Jew. But I don't think either socialism or capitalism is being promoted.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

The greatest music reaches the highest realm of expression of all the arts and while certain qualities of music/sound can sometimes be roughly associated with certain basic emotions, it can't express anything very specific by itself, because that depends on knowing the composer's intentions, if there are any and as far as these can be communicated and understood in words, and on the interpretation of the performer and the individual listener. Words will never do justice in describing the expression of the music and the expression will never be experienced (exactly) the same by two or more people. So to answer the question: music is the universal language that cannot uniformly express.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I suspect that the more specific the subject, the less likely music will be able to describe it in a way that can be generally understood. For example: Euler's identity, paramecia, gerunds. I imagine that R. Strauss, who claimed to be able to describe just about anything, might happily take those as challenges!


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Mahler said something to the effect "Music expresses things where words leave off". Could someone listening to say Strauss's Symphonia Domestica or Alpine Symphony, without knowing the title or the program, divine what the music was describing? I doubt it. And he was one of the best at writing descriptive music. But it wouldn't take a lot of brain power to hear the distant thunder storm in the 3rd movement of Symphonie Fantastique. In general though, music can't describe much of anything. It can instill emotions in a way assuming the listener is receptive.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> "I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc…" -Igor Stravinsky
> 
> A curious opinion, and one that I doubt even Stravinsky really believed. For most of us, music can express all sorts of emotions, states of mind, even physical situations.
> 
> My question: What is it that music can _not _express, at least in a way that would be generally understood by people familiar with the music's traditions?


In my formative teenage period )) I was smitten by a gorgeous blonde (actually an identical twin) and had just started taking her out. At the time I wasn't sure where a I stood with her. She lived in the woman's dorm and I in the men's. Anyway, one evening I took her for a walk in the relatively dark adjoining hallways. Suddenly she turned around and attacked me...in a good way.

I had never had that happen in my life! Always had to work for it.  I returned to my dorm room and laid down to listen to the work below that I had just heard for the first time the day before. That was a long-g-g-g time ago, but to this day when I hear that piece I am transported to that moment in time and all the memories and emotions that went with it as if the music itself turns on an internal recording.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> In general though, music can't describe much of anything. It can instill emotions in a way assuming the listener is receptive.


Right...the natural effects of melody/harmony can create feelings of tension, instability - thru harmonic progression, dissonance and eventual resolution and release....a major 7th will beg for resolution on the ear of the listener, a tritone will beg for resolve...the listener needn't know what exactly he/she is listening to, the music itself will establish the tension/release scenario....how the listener reacts to that sonic situation may vary widely between listeners, and listeners may well conceive certain images or ideas from it - but originally, essentially, it was just sounds....


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think the part of the quote in the OP is only part of what Stravinsky was trying to get at. The full quote is as follows. The 2nd quote here, came later and I think is trying to explain what he was getting at.

"I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc….Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence."

"Most people like music because it gives them certain emotions such as joy, grief, sadness, and image of nature, a subject for daydreams or – still better – oblivion from “everyday life”. They want a drug – dope -…. Music would not be worth much if it were reduced to such an end. When people have learned to love music for itself, when they listen with other ears, their enjoyment will be of a far higher and more potent order, and they will be able to judge it on a higher plane and realise its intrinsic value."

Rather than limiting what music does, he is trying to redefine what it actually means apart from what most people listen to music for. From my own experience I was that "most people" he was referring to. I used to listen to certain songs, movements, to get a certain kick like from the first movement of Beethoven's 5th or Appassionata. But later on I became interested in a sort of music that didn't really seem to express anything in particular, just admiring what unfolds without certain preconceived things in mind I used to look for.

Not trying to put anyone down, but I even hear on this board some people get certain emotions from atonal music, as if they were listening to Tchaikovsky or something, which I don't feel at all or associate with that sort of music. I feel they are trying too hard to relate the music to recognizable emotions, while many others like me are bewildered how they can get those sort of emotions from that music (like say Stockhausen). I doubt those composers had in mind to convey those emotions to these listeners. Cage himself later tried to isolate emotion out of his music, because he claimed listeners would get the opposite emotion he was trying to convey


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Not trying to put anyone down, but I even hear on this board some people get certain emotions from atonal music, as if they were listening to Tchaikovsky or something, which I don't feel at all or associate with that sort of music. I feel they are trying too hard to relate the music to recognizable emotions, while many others like me are bewildered how they can get those sort of emotions from that music (like say Stockhausen). I doubt those composers had in mind to convey those emotions to these listeners. Cage himself later tried to isolate emotion out of his music, because he claimed listeners would get the opposite emotion he was trying to convey


I feel lots of contemporary music still have good uses in spooky movies or documentaries dealing with mysteries. For example, in this documentary the music played around 20:00~ 22:00 sounds somewhat like Stockhausen and helps instill emotions and atmosphere appropriate for the visual material. I can't think of any other type of music that can do this better.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think the part of the quote in the OP is only part of what Stravinsky was trying to get at.


Also, in the original source the words "express" and "expression" are italicized, serving the same function as condescending quotation marks (picture someone raising their index and middle fingers on both hands, accompanied with a kind of sneer or grimace). In the musical context in the 1930s, both words would have evoked Schoenberg (i.e. expressionism), who attributed to his atonal music exactly the kind of emotional expression that Stravinsky is denigrating (and that you said you found perplexing). So yes, we can't fully grasp what Stravinsky meant by this passage unless we keep in mind the shadow of Schoenberg creeping behind it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

1. Some general, universal givens: big things make big sounds, little things make little sounds.
2. "Gestures" of sounds can be imitated or suggested. Walking, for instance, is a familiar repetitive sound. Doesn't "adagio" mean "walking tempo?"
3. "Fast" tempos are related to humans moving "fast."

So there is already an "infrastructure" of universally agreed-upon and relatable 'gestures' in music. The pizzicato strings used in cartoons to describe a character 'sneaking' across; the sound of a bass drum when Moe belts Curly in the stomach, the 'ping' of a violin string when Moe pulls out one of Larry's nose hairs with a pair of pliers...


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Well, there's the _Dance of the Knights_ from Prokofiev's _Romeo and Juliet_. The Montagues and the Capulets get together for an evening of merriment. Not suitable for Valentine's Day!


Not to mention, Barber's "Medea's Dance of Vengeance".


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I kind of agree with Stravinsky that music can't express anything or very little. Other genres such as literature, movies, paintings can express much more because they can be much more concrete. Music can only induce subjective feelings, atmopheres, conjure some images etc. Even if I took some of the most programmatic music, such as Liszt Dante symphony or Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique or something like it, a played it to people unfamiliar with the story of the symphony, they would not be able recreate or guess the program for the symphony. Even the evoked moods can be very subjective. What one perceives as sad music can another perceive as joyous music.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Music typically does not express opinion ... except in lyrics and I don't like that kind of music.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Music cannot represent what is non-existent . Mind the difference between interpretative reality and existence . Music cannot express the Big Bang without the pretentiousness of an imaginative and assuming reality . When music represents existence , hmm , you were there alive .


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Um, probably fair to say that "representing the non-existent" is an oxymoron. Even in math the number zero is loaded with anthrocentric context.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> ...2. "Gestures" of sounds can be imitated or suggested. Walking, for instance, is a familiar repetitive sound. Doesn't "adagio" mean "walking tempo?"


"andante (adj., n.) musical direction, 'moderately slow,' 1742, from Italian _andante_, suggesting 'walking'."


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Music can represent the heart-beat . The heart-beat of a drum is an example of direct music/existence . And there's the related mimicry of existence also - like that bumblebee roaring about your head as the carillon chimes .


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Captainnumber36 said:


> There is the sound of the music that definitely evokes states of mind within the listeners. There tends to be intersubjectivity on those states evoked, but those are not definite.
> 
> So music DOES stimulate the mind, so it expresses what it needs to for a particular individual.


It would be interesting to look at some sort of brain scan while someone is listening to music to see how it affects the brain and if different types of music affect the brain in different ways.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

starthrower said:


> How can music describe a physical object?


In terms of Geometry, how can music express a physical object such as a square or a triangle. But, Debussy does one 'ell of a job describing the physical object we call "the sea". And Beethoven (in the Sixth Symphony) does a good job describing birds calling and a thunder storm, both physical "objects" (or, perhaps more accurately, realities) that we all seem to immediately recognize upon hearing them. Other composers have expressed such things, too: storms, ocean waves, a volcanic eruption....

If Stravinsky is correct and if music remains "essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood...", whatever, one must wonder why the composer bothered to write ballet music, such as his _Rite of Spring_. At least the choreographers who take Stravinsky seriously have an easy task of it, since they can fit any movements to any of the music. One could argue, using Stravinsky's idea, that we could disassemble a video performance of _Rite of Spring_, clipping sections of the ballet and then rearranging them in a Cageian random order, and that playing the video back to the original music nothing will be disturbed? The performance will remain equally valid and expressive. Heck! Why bother with a rearrangement of the _Rite of Spring_? Why not substitute any ballet, _Swan Lake_ or _Giselle_ or _The Nutcracker_ and get valid results?

And have we been deceived all these years by the inexpressiveness of film music? Wouldn't Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_ opening fit the _Psycho_ shower scene as well as does Bernard Hermann's classic score?

I'm not ready to agree with Stravinsky. I will accept that it's difficult to describe a sphere with music. Or a rectangle, or square, or the equation E=mc², or my wife's face (even Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, nor Mahler could do that, and no one writes more beautiful music than they!) … or many many other such physical realities. But music does affect me, emotionally, mood-wise, even physically at times (a great performance of a great work can prove physically exhausting), and I'm pleased it does. I can't think of any other reason to spend precious time listening to it otherwise.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

haydnguy said:


> It would be interesting to look at some sort of brain scan while someone is listening to music to see how it affects the brain and if different types of music affect the brain in different ways.


Has been done. The interesting outcome is how differently the brains of different listeners react (in terms of which regions are active) when listening to the same music.

I think it's a mistake to expect or believe that music can _consistently_ express something, whether emotional or tangible. The composer writes what he/she believes to be a signal for some feeling or idea or sensation or whatever into the score, the performer may or may not deliver that signal as the composer intended, and the listener may or may not be tuned to the right wavelength to receive the signal. I recall being amazed years ago on learning that a good friend found the pianissimo last movement of Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony very calming and optimistic. To me it is bleak and edgy, though my friend was always the more cheerful and optimistic of the two of us. The image or sensation invoked by music depends, of course, on what signal is transmitted, but just as much on the receiver.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Some...Bodily functions!:lol:


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Flamme said:


> Some...Bodily functions!


right...the contrabassoon can be a most expressive instrument in this regard....LMAO!! :lol::lol:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The "blues shuffle" was said to have been derived from walking behind a mule or horse while plowing. Also, the sound of trains was influential in slide guitar, and the 'click-clack' of the tracks.

I've often said that "a waltz is just a 4/4 with one of its rear legs missing."


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Takes a worried man to sing a worried song . _Kentuckian_

Music is a fleeting art that dies as it is born and cannot be captured . _Greek _

When speaking with a turtle play turtle music . _Tikoon_

relating to existence can be simply honest , unassuming , not imposing
.
.
.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Tikoo Tuba said:


> When speaking with a turtle play turtle music . _Tikoon_


Of course, we all know music is a language to some out there.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Turtle music in Paradise is real . When playing the music - a turtle awarely and easily swims toward it , to behold it , focused and intelligent (like the ET in the ET Movie who was a scientific turtle evolved beyond having a shell) . I'm speaking of Existence music purely relating to Existence and its shared knowing . Reality music is something different since it may include non-existence . I think Holst's The Planets would only be Reality music unless he had actually left earth to commune with the planets . Seems he just had a fancy for astrology stories .

Well , sure , I've stopped in Paradise , Montana to have a look around . I remember a guitar shop for one thing .


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

What can't music express? I don't know; it seems like people have been forcing music into painting studios since the Renaissance. 

Personally, I'm one of those unfortunate people who needs to have musical depictions explained to me. When I hear La Mer, I hear more of a symphony than a seascape. I remember being embarrassed at a performance of something by Stravinsky which a flourish by a bassoon. Everyone started giggling. All I heard was a bassoon. 

Sure, there are times I make up my own story about a piece (I have some crackling stories associated with Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, and 9th). But personally, I mostly hear music. When I want a story, I grab something with pages on it. 

I agree with Aaron Copland: Is there a meaning to music? My answer to that would be yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? My answer to that would no.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Music is associated with physical gesture; that's why people dance to it, and why conductors conduct.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Music can’t express brain surgery. That’s about it.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Debussy does one 'ell of a job describing the physical object we call "the sea"_

As do/does/did Vaughan Williams, Glazunov, Frank Bridge and everyone else that wrote about it.

Liszt wrote about life (from the cradle to the grave) and nationalism (Hungarica and others).

Tchaikovsky described family dissolution, fighting and death in Romeo and Juliet and other tone poems.

In Lemminkainen's Return, Sibelius wrote about the Finnish hero stitched together after being torn apart and returning to life.

In his 8th symphony, many of his friends said Shostakovich tried to musically describe totalitarianism.

Vivaldi often described bird and other sounds in music such as La Notte and Il Gardellino.

Smetana set out to describe an entire nation in six parts in Ma Vlast.

Gustav Holst tried to mimic the (then known) entire solar system in The Planets.

I think the record clear that, whether or not they succeeded, many composers tried to describe and project things in sound.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Music recordings are clear in a single aspect - they describe their existence . The most genuine and honest connection to them is had if you were present at the recording session .


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> Mahler said something to the effect "Music expresses things where words leave off". Could someone listening to say Strauss's Symphonia Domestica or Alpine Symphony, without knowing the title or the program, divine what the music was describing? I doubt it. And he was one of the best at writing descriptive music. But it wouldn't take a lot of brain power to hear the distant thunder storm in the 3rd movement of Symphonie Fantastique. In general though, music can't describe much of anything. It can instill emotions in a way assuming the listener is receptive.


The converse of Mahler's idea is also true: music stops where words begin.

Non-overlapping magisteria.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Enrico Chapela's Ínguesu "is based on the final game of the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup, when Mexico won over Brazil at the Estadio Azteca." (Wiki) The work is based on hearing the game over the radio!






Chapela is also known for his electric cello concerto _Magnetar_, premiered by the LA Phil but not available commercially at this time. A pity.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Charles Ives' Second String Quartet (1907-13) has movements titled "I. Discussions" and "II. Arguments," and you can hear this in the music. This method of using instruments as "characters" was later modeled by Elliott Carter.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I'm fond of conversational music . I'm remembering particularly the three-some - when two are alternately and naturally speaking and one is purely musical . Should I be the music voice , I've no idea what they're talking about . It's not the literal meaning of words I'd be listening to . And as the conversation comes to an end , the speakers look to the musician with astonishment . What happened ?

When the same theory of music interacts with an audience , hmm , all the people feel free to chatter . It's relaxed .


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