Spectra of Emotion and Kivy

Kivy attempts to use something he calls Contour theory to explain the way that music can have emotional representation. He claims that music can contour to the listener and allow the listener to perceive an emotion that was intended to embodied and conveyed in that piece of music. 

Two obvious concerns strike me from the outset. First, this seems to work easily with emotions like happy or sad. However, how can a musician convey guilt? Or contentment? Secondly, his theory relies  on the listener being a part of the same or similar social traditions that connect an emotion like sadness with slow tempo and minor chords. I suspect that these kinds of musical associations are not universal among differing social systems. This becomes even more problematic when you pair it with my first concern. Contour theory would imply then, that there is some universally accepted association that could be drawn musically between complex emotions and musical themes. This seems an untenable claim.

Do musical-emotional associations vary across cultures?

Initial Objections to Hanslick

Hanslick makes the claim that music has no content. I must first admit that I have an irrational bias to disagree with him (he describes quite well the kind of defensive reaction that this thesis often receives, and I had that very reaction). Hanslick claims that music has no content and by this he is not referring to notes or the form, but the kind of content a painting has, being a painting of something. He argues that the listener simply imports his or her own content when listening to the music, and that it contains none of its own. He answers my first objection somewhat inadequately.

My initial reaction was to claim that all art is absent of referent without the observer's imports. Hanslick claims that while we import referents like the recognition of nouns like "Orestes" pursued by the fairies in a painting we do not import the deeper levels. (http://blog.thevolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/bouguereau-orestes-furies-painting-volts1.jpg). He claims that the viewer may not know that it is Orestes or the fairies, but that viewer will be able to perceive that he is being tormented. This does not seem to answer my objection at all. The viewer must also need to import 'tormented' into the work, for a viewer without that concept would be unable to get that from the work if he or she had no knowledge of what torment was.

My question is simply: Do you agree with my criticism?