I think Leonardo Da Vinci or Michelangelo preferred painting or sculpture to music because they viewed a music performance as something transitory.
But they were wrong. The more perfect good is the good that cannot be taken away from you. The more perfect work of art is the one that can be internalized so that it becomes a part of you that cannot be taken away. Poetry, story, and song (which are all connected) are superior in this regard.
No matter how fine a painting or sculpture may be, it is always something external to me. There can only be one authentic instance of it. Only one person can own it (unless there is a public museum or someone kind enough to hold it in trust for everyone), and even then it can only be in one place at one time, and only so many people at a time can look at it, and only for so long. It could be stolen and then you wouldn't have it anymore. You could have to go somewhere that you couldn't bring it with you. It could be damaged or destroyed by fire, or an earthquake, or a flood, or ordinary weather, or by an accident in moving it, and it would be gone permanently, except for a necessarily poor and imperfect copy in your memory.
But once I have committed a text to memory (say, a sonnet of Shakespeare), I own it, just as surely as if I had paid out a fortune to own the painting of a master painter. More so, in fact, because it is a part of me in a way that the painting never could be. I can give it to another person without losing or diminishing my possession of it. It can be everywhere at one time because it can be taught to anyone and everyone and they can all enjoy it simultaneously. A thief is unable to take it away from you. You can never go anywhere that you can't take it with you. The only way it could be taken from you is if you give it up yourself by forgetting it (and I've heard that you never really forget anything; there's always a way to dredge it up), or, I suppose, by suffering an injury that causes brain damage and mental impairment (it has to be less perfect somehow than the grace of God - that can't be taken away except if you refuse it). It may live in time in a way that a painting doesn't, but the way you make something like this approach the eternal is by repetition - if something is good enough, you don't mind doing it again and again. That's why Catholics never tire of praying the Hail Mary and Our Father over and Mass every day and the Psalms every month and the Bible every cycle of readings.
Music is in essence an exalted form of speech, so all that is said here applies to music. But not all to the same extent - some music is highly artificial and can only be produced under very special circumstances, and some have this characteristic to a lesser degree. To find the absolutely most perfect, it would seem that one should find that for which the above is most applicable.
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