A piece of music makes no obvious argument, tells no literal story, soars above politics and history in an ether where logic and feeling coexist interchangeably. When Walter Pater wrote that “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music,” he was making a claim not only about all art but also about all criticism, whose job is to isolate those attributes of other specimens of art that bring them closest to music and are least burdened with representational duties.
