ABSTRACT
Some musicians, musicologists and philosophers have defended the view that imagination plays a role in the apprehension of the expressive character of musical works. Many of these writers have argued that listeners imagine personae in music and that this is essential to grasping the full expressive character of music. Other writers, while denying that listeners imagine personae in music, have nevertheless held that imagination has an important role to play in understanding music. Philosophers who identify an important role for imagination are often reacting against certain influential views in philosophy of music. Consequently, in order to understand how imagination has come to play a role in some contemporary philosophy of music, it is necessary to know something about the current state of play in this philosophical subdiscipline. This essay will focus on the philosophical literature on the role of imagination in listening
to music. Some musicians have also emphasized the role of imagination in listening. For example, the distinguished American composer Aaron Copeland wrote that, “it is the freely imaginative mind that is at the core of all vital music making and music listening” (Copeland 1952, 7). Copeland does not, however, develop this point or fully describe the role that he thinks imagination plays in listening to music. There is also an emerging psychological literature on music and imagination. See, for example, the essays in Hargreaves et al. (2012). This psychological literature is, however, largely orthogonal to the philosophical literature. When psychologists say that imagination plays a role in listening to music, they seem to mean that the mind is active in listening. For example, they talk about how a listener’s recall of other music can influence cognition of music. When philosophers say that imagination plays a role in listening to music they mean something quite different.
