Am I the only one that thinks that the "mood" or "meaning" of a piece is entirely subjective? I've come to the conclusion lately that no matter what the composer's original intention, many pieces will mean different things to different people.

Take this example:

A: *playing something (in their opinion) deep and meaningful*
B: "That's really pretty!"
A: "Huh? This is a tragic piece. It was written when the composer was going through an extremely traumatic phase of his life!"
B: "Ah... it's really nice!"
A: "No... it's not. This is supposed to signify hopelessness and despair, the tragedy of the human condition!"
B: "Well I think it's really nice and relaxing..."
A: "What? You don't get it....FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" *throws book at listener*



Bit extreme but I'm often baffled about how some people say that certain parts of a piece represent something, and I sometimes can't see it at all.

What do others think? Do you do tonnes of research when learning a piece to try and get an insight as to what the composer may have meant, or do you just make your own assumptions and associations?

I always make my own assumptions. I put into the piece what I want to put into it and if other people hear something different, that's their perogative.
(and I never throw books at anyone )

I think there's a great deal of subjectivity, but if we dig, we might be able to find nuggets of non-subjectivity. Of course if there is absolutely no information available, then yes it might be totally subjective - but I find it hard to believe that there would be absolutely none at all, for most of the common practice classical composers.

I've always been interested in knowing more about pieces that I play - so I always try to look for information about them. There's no hard and fast rule for me but here is a live example of one I did recently..

At the moment I'm working on a 20th C piece - Menotti's "Ricercare and Toccata on a theme from The Old Maid And The Thief" (gee, what a mouthful). It being 20th C and not very well known at that, there isn't a lot to go by. So I have had to go digging.

First I started by wondering - what is The Old Maid And The Thief, anyway? It turns out to be "A Grotesque Opera In One Act". It's also the first opera written for radio.

Then I try to find a recording of it - maybe I can find out where exactly in the opera this theme comes from? So I find a recording on Youtube (of the full opera). I find that the theme is from the 3rd scene of the opera - and watch it a few times to figure out what's going on.

Turns out that the theme is the background music for a scene between the old maid's maid and the thief - where she brings him breakfast in bed and tries to convince him to stay, because she's fallen in love with him. But he's a bit reluctant. The resulting duet, like the rest of the opera, is a bit silly - but also a bit sentimental.

I think that this is quite a good description of the piece, musically - silly but also a bit sentimental. So that's what I bear in mind when I play it.

Listening to the rest of the opera, I also find that the last *bar* of the Toccata is the first phrase of one of the arias in the opera.

It's possible to take analysis too far though... when I was in university I remember having to write a critique of a musicological paper that claimed to be able to infer that Brahms was afraid of women because of the way the clarinet theme in a movement of his 3rd Symphony sounded. I kid you not.

Edit: I just thought of another example that makes me think that sometimes, the music itself can communicate what the composer meant. My favourite Chopin Nocturne is Op. 9 No 3. I first heard it when I was 6. I'd always thought that it sounded like a musical description of walking by a river - first it's calm, then the wind rises and it gets a bit blustery, then it's calm again. I recently found out that this nocturne is titled "Murmures de la Seine"- years after I formed my first interpretation of it.

It became very popular in the Romantic era to describe scenes, animals, etc. through music. Music written for operas, ballet, films is also of this kind. So it makes sense to do a bit of research to find out whether the composer actually wanted his music to describe something. Often the title gives it away - "L'orage" or "The Swan" for example.

I tend towards feeling that to a great extent it's subjective.

However - having just listened to the Swan of Tuonela on CFM it is difficult to imagine anyone finding it other than bleak and lonely.