 Gurney’s formalism is more nuanced than views that entirely deny music’s capacity to express emotions. While music’s chief value resides in its capacity to be impressive, that is, to arouse the peculiarly musical emotion that is connected to musical beauty, Gurney concedes that music may be expressive, in that it may arouse emotions of the ordinary kind, or suggest extra-musical images and ideas (Gurney 1880: 312). But expressiveness is subordinate to impressiveness. First, it is not an essential or even typical element of valuable music, as much beautiful music isn’t expressive of any definite emotion. Second, it does not by itself give an explanation of the power and value of the art, as expressive qualities per se (e.g., in a face) are not a source of value (Gurney 1880: 338). Gurney’s additional claims, that impressiveness amplifies a piece’s expressiveness (1880: 339) and is even required for expressiveness to be valuable (1880: 314), are hard to make sense of unless his theory of expressiveness is further clarified (an extensive discussion of Gurney’s views is found in Budd 1985: chapter 4).