Some writers have done very well at describing their own or their characters' responses to music, putting the music itself in the background. Three that come to mind:

- Kerouac describing his response to George Shearing in "On the Road"

- Carson McCullers describing her character's response to the Eroica in "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"

- Halldor Laxness describing listening to Roberto Gerhard's violin concerto in "The Atom Station".

These are all brilliant writing by any standard.

Thomas Mann does a virtuoso performance of describing a piece which is sort of based on Schoenberg's "Die Jacobsleiter" in "Doctor Faustus". In a way he makes it easy for himself by describing something imaginary, but he does get the effect of a piece using massive-scale formal mirrored structure right.