Intensity and Passion: On Musical Experience, Layers of Meaning, and Stages

In this article, the authors link the discussion of differing musical experiences to Frede V. Nielsen’s exploration of music as a multifarious universe of meaning, which, in encounter with the listener’s receptive consciousness, presents different layers of musical meaning. The focal point of the article is that which Nielsen refers to as music’s spiritual/existential layer of meaning. This special type of musical experience is discussed in light of the Søren Kierkegaard’s theory about the different stages on life’s way: the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage.