Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain signs, transmits to others the feelings he is experiencing, and that others are infected by those feelings and experience them.
I am sharing Tolstoy's views because, at least for music, I agree with him wholeheartedly. When I work on a piece of music, my goal is to uncover the feelings it contains, to own them, and to be able to transmit them to my audience.