音乐的四副面孔

音乐究竟是什么？最朴素的答案是，音乐是情感的表现。但是，人类表现情感的形式多种多样，并不是所有的表情都是音乐。有人认为音乐与情感无关，只是乐音的运动形式。我们在聆听音乐时流露的情感只是音乐唤起的，不是音乐本身所具有的。音乐家在创作或演奏一首快乐的曲子时，并不必然正在经历着快乐。我们通过音乐可以认识到快乐，并不必然经历着快乐。音乐唤起情感一说也难以成立。只有少数专家才要求认识音乐的形式和情感的性质。多数听众只是享受正在进行的音乐，既不用记住它的开头，也无需猜想它的结尾。音乐可能就是正在鸣响着的声音。这就是迄今为止理论家所描绘的音乐的四副面孔，它们构成了20世纪艺术哲学的华采乐章。

Four facets of music

What music really is? The most popular answer is that music is the expression of emotion. However, there are various kinds of expression, and obviously not all of them are music. Some scholars claim that music has nothing to do with emotion because music is only the movement of sound waves. A listener indeed experiences emotion when he/she hears music, but what he/she experiences is not the emotion of music but the emotion aroused by that music. Thus, a musician does not necessarily experience the joy when he composes or performs a joyful music. So the theory that music can arouse emotion from its listener does not hold water. Only a few specialists want to recognize the form of music and the nature of emotion. Most listeners just enjoy the music, and need neither remember its beginning nor anticipate its end. Music might be merely the sound that we are listening to. The above-mentioned are the four facets of music expounded by music theorists, which compose the brilliant part of the philosophy of art in the twentieth century.