IRF did not say it was meaningless, he said it contained 'no inherent meaning' which I understood as having no fixed meaning contained within it. And, if that is what IRF meant, I agree with him/her.

If you just say the word 'bat', it does not inherently mean one, or the other, of the two possibilities you gave, until you give it a context. And I think it is the same with music. You could not say with certainty that a piece was political unless given some accompanying explanation or context - it has no inherent meaning on its own that you could tie down and say 'that's political', does it?

After reading this we are much more confused than we were before.

Firstly, we have no idea of which Beethoven symphony we are being called upon to consider. It is probably common knowledge in which case we ask Members to excuse our ignorance.

Secondly, the admirable Percy Scholes after telling us that "Écossaise" is French for "Scottish" goes on to say that "the dance so called does not seem to have come from Scotland," but is no more than a "sort of Country Dance (see that term)."

Thirdly, the same estimable Percy Scholes adds that "instrumental pieces" [he does not specifically say "symphonies"] "by Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin had that name" ["Écossaise"] "given to them, but it is difficult to see why." Well! If it was difficult for Scholes one of our supreme musicologists after all no wonder that we can find neither rhyme nor reason in it! Is there a Member who will take us by the hand and walk us through this pseudo-Scottish quagmire in words of one or two syllables?

We can only suggest approaching the question from the opposite direction and considering which Beethoven symphonies end with variation movements. And lo they are the Third and Ninth. We are inclined to propose the Third as the symphony of which Member Dish speaks.

There too it is perhaps worth noting that the music was originally used for the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. We note there too indeed in that very fact some political implications that it would not do to discount entirely.

or WoO 86

What we wonder did Shelley (closet drama, 1819) know of Goethe (1778)? Our pocket library does not run to an answer.

  IONE:
  Where are the spirits fled?

  PANTHEA:
                                      Only a sense
  Remains of them, like the omnipotence
  Of music, when the inspirèd voice and lute
  Languish, ere yet the responses are mute,
  Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul,
  Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.