ABSTRACT
If one were to ask a member of the audience during the interval of a concert in which a Mozart symphony had just been performed if he had understood the music, he would look at the questioner in surprise. After applauding generously, one would expect to comment on the quality of the performance, perhaps also on the conductor's manner, the acoustics of the hall, or even spontaneously mention the music's specific beauty. This chapter summarizes the characteristics of aesthetic understanding covered so far: it is something shared by all musicians' concert goers, what is shared is a form of understanding caused by the object and appropriate to it, It is not something listeners either possess or lack; rather, it is present to differing degrees, dependent on the individual listener's aesthetic experience, and it varies, along with listeners' responses, according to their subjective mood.
