School of rock: C is for catharsis

Why bother with lyrics when everyone can hear you scream? School of rock looks at the power of the purgePart of music's vast attraction is its ability to express emotion or, paradoxically in the case of much instrumental music, its inability. Music without lyrics allows us to confer our own meaning upon the piece and often to express our emotions second-hand. Yet in the 20th century, many turned away from the overt and hysterical emotions of the late-tonal music epitomised by Wagner to more opaq...

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