ABSTRACT
The view that music is a symbol standing for something else is rooted in ancient Greek philosophies and in German Idealism. However, ardent proponents, such as Susanne Langer, Nelson Goodman, and Jean-Jacques Nattiez, took the notion further. Thus, the central importance of music was that it could symbolize something beyond itself. Before we examine specific musical examples, we will take a brief tour of philosophical ideas supporting the notion that music can refer to something outside itself and that often these meanings are symbolic.
