I may say at once that I am no connoisseur in art, but simply a layman. I have often observed that the subject matter of works of art has a stronger attraction for me than their formal and technical qualities, though to the artist their value lies first and foremost in these latter. I am unable rightly to appreciate many of the methods used and the effects obtained in art. I state this as to secure the readers indulgence for the attempt I propose to make here.
Nevertheless, works of art do exercise a powerful effect on me, especially those of literature and sculpture, less often of painting. This has occasioned me, when I have been contemplating such things, to spend a long time before them trying to apprehend them in my own way, i.e., to explain to myself what their effect is due to. Whenever I cannot do this, as for instance with music, I am almost incapable of obtaining any pleasure. Some rationalistic, or perhaps analytic, turn of mind in me rebels against being moved by a thing without knowing why I am thus affected and what it is that affects me.
[Wo ich das nicht kann, z. B., in der Musik, bin ich fast genussunfähig. Eine rationalistiche oder vielleicht analytische Anlage sträubt sich in mir dagegen, dass ich ergriffen sein und dabei nicht wissen solle, warum ich es bin und was mich ergreift]
So: in the original the verb used conveys a rather stronger formulation – ‘was mich ergreift’ (that which holds me, which takes me…). This is an important distinction that connects Freud directly to recent ideas on music and psychoanalysis such as the approach proposed by Didier-Weill concerning the Other.
Colloquium: Contemporary Brazilian Music and Thought 