Intentional Fallacy

[equanimus]

I think it is important to make a distinction between art forms.

Oh, yes, I agree with this. But even here, I guess the conclusions I draw are different.

Now I tried extending it to music. For example the 'mathematical' perfection

I mentioned to Plum in a PM - that I don't get what it means for a BGM to be 'appropriate' because music - by the very nature of what it is - cannot help being larger than life. Every user slices the cake as he sees fit. Since last evening, I have the reasonable conviction that the duet between the mridangam and violin in 'I met Bach in my House' is the greatest piece of music I have ever heard. I am not at all uncomfortable about the fact that this may suggest different emotions to different listeners. Each may appreciate it for different memories of emotions and associations (akin to your point of 'our whole life rallies behind us at the moment at which we consume a piece of art'). I know for certain that IR and his musicians - know nothing about 'how' I am going to like it. I am not at all fluttered by this.

I agree with you to the extent that I think the greatness of a piece of music has nothing to do with the emotions that it elicits in us human beings. To put it in more radical terms, I consider Music as an art form that expressly appeals to our senses and doesn't concern itself with the human condition (here, I'm alluding to Schopenhauer who considered it to be the best form of human artistry for this reason). I think, at a subconscious level, I even desist associating various emotions to compositions.

I suppose some musical(ly nuanced listeners) appreciates the mathematical perfection in the song, will he be itching to know if IR achieved it consciously or not. (After all, as Poisson once said: music is the pleasure the human mind gets out of counting without actually knowing it). If IR were to reply a la ThiruviLayAdal siVaji : summA kaththunEn (i.e. not the humility - that I guess would be beyond him and anyway irrelevant to our discussion- just the lack of consciousness of the monstrous brilliance of his creation) then would the musical be a tad heartbroken or even more baffled by the 'natural' genius.

Could be either way.

I'm not a 'musical' in any sense of word, but it's the latter in my case. And, being a purely abstract form of art, I think the role of nuNNuNarvu -- the intuitive 'leap' to challenge oneself -- is even greater in music.