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!