 A further ambiguity is represented by Kant’s apparent commitment both to a variety of musical formalism, according to which musical beauty uniquely resides in the relationship between its component parts, and to the idea that music is expressive of emotions. This is a manifestation of a general tension in Kant’s aesthetics (see Guyer 1977). A formalist tendency is evident when Kant claims that the proper object of the pure judgment of taste in music is composition, by which he means the arrangement of tones (Kant 1790: §14). Later on, Kant states that music “merely plays with sensations” (Kant 1790: §53), offering this in support of his claims regarding music’s low rank among the arts.