What Does Music Mean?

What Does Music Mean?

Today is a bit of an unusual episode. Last month I was invited by the British Society of Aesthetics to address their annual conference. My task was to give a lecture on whatever topic I wanted, having to do with music. So, considering it was an Academic Philosophy conference, I chose the easiest and most straightforward topic possible - What Does Music Mean?

Obviously, this is a topic that has been interrogated from just about every different angle, and I certainly would never claim to have all the answers. But for my lecture, I decided to focus on how to find meaning in these amazing works from a performer's perspective. How do I study and learn these pieces so that I can find the meaning that I think is inside of them? What does history teach us about these pieces and can we use history to find meaning in these works? To try to answer these questions I chose three pieces to explore - Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, Barber's Adagio for Strings, and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. After the lecture I realized it could easily be a podcast episode, so I've slightly changed a few things to make the lecture a bit more podcast-friendly. I hope you enjoy this one, and thanks to the British Society of Aesthetics for their invitation and their warm welcome!

Episoder(283)

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 2)

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 2)

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Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 1)

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 1)

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Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No.2

Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No.2

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19 Feb 58min

Zemlinsky: The Mermaid

Zemlinsky: The Mermaid

The story of Alexander von Zemlinsky's The Mermaid begins with a passionate love affair and ends in heartbreak of the most unabashedly big-R Romantic kind. In 1900, the young, fabulously talented, and...

5 Feb 1h 1min

Pergolesi Stabat Mater

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22 Jan 59min

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

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8 Jan 52min

Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian

Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian

A piece that I have been asked to cover probably a dozen times is Handel's Messiah. It's a piece I love, but a piece that I've never conducted or played, and so therefore I don't know it incredibly we...

18 Des 20251h 9min

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