ABSTRACT
"Representation requires a medium, and is understood only when the distinction between subject and medium has been recognized". But in musical representation, Scruton insists, no medium can be located, and the distinction between subject and medium dissolves, at least where the subject represented is sound. When music attempts the direct "representation" of sounds it has a tendency to become transparent, as it were, to its subject. Representation gives way to reproduction, and the musical medium drops out of consideration altogether as superfluous. When music attempts to represent sound, "since there is nothing to music except sound, there ceases to be any essential difference between the medium of representation and the subject represented". It is important to notice to start with, that Scruton is talking here only about instances of music representing sounds: more or less what have been calling musical "pictures", and musical representations of the "sounds like" kind.
