The Relation of Language to Materials
Simon Emmerson · Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks · 1986
It is not the purpose of this chapter to delve yet again into the meaning of the term ‘expression’ used with respect to music. We will be concerned with one aspect of music perception brought to the fore once more by the development of electroacoustic music on tape: namely the possible relation of the sounds to associated or evoked images in the mind of the listener. The term ‘image’ may be interpreted as lying somewhere between true synaesthesia with visual image 1 and a more ambiguous complex of auditory, visual and emotional stimuli. We are concerned here not with how specific sources may evoke particular images but with how the imagery evoked interacts with more abstact aspects of musical composition.