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The problem is that what ever people feel isn't exactly the same or even close enough to be considered similar and its not right for one person to try and "force" that interpretation onto another person.
When I listen to music I do not hear birds chirping or cannons firing or see a woman walking down the road while its raining. In fact, anyone that does is pretty much nuts! Music cannot express those things at all. Now sure you might make those associations and I suppose theres nothing wrong wtih that but the moment you start to believe that the music is "saying" that and/or try to convince others that is what the music is saying then your wrong.
Even when a composer does it I would say its not completely correct but since music does have that effect of association to some degree its not completely wrong(and since its music it doesn't hurt) but it can only be done by the composer and by no one else. (since if the composer did use imagery to help compose then that is most likely the closest to being correct or at least lets us see it through the composers "eyes"... which again, its suppose to be music though)
If some jo blow music commentator says something like "This Beethoven's piece has extreme tension and reveals the inner struggle that Beethoven was having with himself ...", which is somewhat abstract, is just complete nonsense and shows just how much someone like that doesn't know about music. The more concrete stuff is even worse. Those types of commentary stuff is just to try to get the public to understand the music and make it extra-musical but it is totally wrong because music isn't about being extra-musical but only about the music(assuming the composer did not give any imagery himself).
All I can say is that its up to each person to do what they want with the music as that is what it is for. Anyone trying to force conceptional ideas about music onto another is just wrong. (of course people do it all the time and not just in music)
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