ABSTRACT
The non-conceptual complexity of the aesthetic constitutes an initial impassable barrier to cognitive understanding. In exercising its power and claiming a certain reflective control, it nonetheless at the same time must remain aware of its impotence in the face of sounds themselves and the aesthetic complexity locked within them. The scope for interpretation is even greater, even more open and less certain, the definitive once-and-for-all of cognitive understanding all the more limited in purely instrumental music. Cognitive understanding would also like to establish final truth in the interpretation of content, and to reach deepest layer, the core radiating the message and meaning most brightly. The source of the self's involvement in the interpretative process is its subjective experience of art, founded in aesthetic understanding. The andantino semplice theme in Tchaikovsky's piano concerto might also be judged plain, saccharine, superficial or overdone, and in the same way other creations whose beauty is equally intentional might be perceived as banal or kitsch.
