「懷舊」（義大利文、英文為Nostalgia；德文、法文為Nostalgie）一詞雖然常出現於日常生活以及文學、音樂和其他藝術論著中，但在哲學、美學、心理學乃至音樂等學科的辭典內，卻無此辭條，更遑論系統性的說明。可見，「懷舊」雖然是一個日常用語，卻也是一個詩意且難以言說與定義的觀念及情感。既然不容易用語言描述，這或許正是音樂表達可以得到優勢之處。本文以此為前提，分成三部分探討音樂中懷舊情感的表現：第一節「懷舊的意涵」，將從「辭源與日常用法」、「醫學的角度」以及「文藝思潮中的懷舊情感呈現」等三方面，整理「懷舊」之意涵，作為本文探討音樂中懷舊情感表現之依據；第二節與第三節則以不同作曲家的音樂創作為範例，並從「符號」（sign）的角度入手，依據符號性質的差異面向，將音樂中懷舊情感的表達方式進行圖像（icon）、象徵（symbol）與指引（index）符號的區分。透過本文之論述，當可揭示與凸顯懷舊情感相關探討，對於理解及詮釋音樂的廣度與深度有所助益。

The term ‘Nostalgia’ (It. ‘Nostalgia’; Fr. & Gr. ‘Nostalgie’) is often used in daily life as well as treatises on literature, music and other forms of arts. But it does not even appear in dictionaries of subjects such as philosophy, aesthetics, psychology and even music, let alone receive any systematical consideration. This shows that despite being a common word, ‘Nostalgia’ carries a poetic notion and a sense of feeling which is almost beyond description. Because of this feature, it is of particular value for musical expression. This paper is based on this assumption, and discusses approaches to expressing the effect of nostalgia through music in three sections. The first section ‘The implication of nostalgia’ approaches the connotations of nostalgia from three perspectives: etymology and common usage, medicine, and presentations of nostalgia in literature. This serves as a theoretical foundation for the discussion on expressions of nostalgic emotion in music. The other two sections take musical works of different composers as examples and examine them from a semiotic perspective, in order to categorize the ways of expressing the nostalgic feeling through the use of iconic, symbolic and indexical signs. The aim of this paper is to reveal and highlight the discussion on nostalgic effects in music, which could be useful for increasing the scope and depth of understanding and interpreting music.