Hanslick observes that, when instrumental music is unaccompanied by a text, music lovers are unable to indicate the feeling it expresses with any considerable degree of intersubjective agreement. He famously adapts an example from Boyé, noting that Gluck’s famous aria “Che farò senza Euridice”, expressive of dejection and despair, could express equally well joy if paired with a happy text (Hanslick 1854: chapter 2). The argument is supposed to prove that music is expressively neutral, but it onl