Critics.....good guys or not ??

[salymap]

Smittims and I started a thread with a similar title on the BBC Boards, that one was about composers.

Apologies if someone else has started this elsewhere, otherwise it's over to you.

For some months I worked alongside [but not for] a fairly wellknown critic of the time. His methods were varied, sometimes score study before the concert, mostly a last minute scramble to get his opinions to the printer in time [pre computer]. He also wrote in the Penguin Music Guides and was able to chose what he reviewed.

[Ventilhorn]

Smittims and I started a thread with a similar title on the BBC Boards, that one was about composers.

Apologies if someone else has started this elsewhere, otherwise it's over to you.

Right then, Salymap. Over to me then, so let's start with a little sardonic view as seen by one who has been taking part in the subject of some of those critiques:

CRITICS

“The music critic has read more, heard more artists and attended more concerts than most of us. The one thing his competence does not extend to is the ability to perform. He is a musical eunuch.”


Anon: Sometimes ascribed to Sir Thomas Beecham

Most members of the audience apply a critical judgement to their listening. A few are actually paid to circulate their opinions. It is a sad fact that many concertgoers leave the auditorium delighted with what they have heard and, on reading an adverse revue in the following day's paper, decide that the concert was not a good one after all.


There are several types of critic:


The (very) local newspaper critic: His revue might read as follows

“ ... in the violin concerto, the soloist wore a pale pink taffeta dress with lace trimmings,
complemented by a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. The Mayor, Alderman Roy Briggs MBE, and the Lady Mayoress were in attendance ... Sir Joseph Porter, Bart., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, gave an address at the end in which he thanked the artists for their performance and announced that, for future concerts there would be a buffet service available during the interval ...”

A local music teacher with an L.R.A.M or similar: He is careful to limit his opinion to generalities:-

“ ... In the Sibelius Symphony, Maestro Spivinsky painted a broad canvas ... I particularly noticed the playing of the first bassoon (he is careful not to say why) .... we need more concerts of this standard in Hucklesfield ...”

The Musicologist: He writes as if he has just swallowed Groves' Dictionary of Music and Musicians:

“ ... the intrinsic value to be gained from hearing music of this genre is that the essential plagal modalityof the music is not sacrificed for the sake of rigorous tonality ... the conductor's realisation of the Boyce symphony created an instant rapport between performer and listener ...” (The underscoring is mine.)

The Big-time Critic: He goes straight for the throat:

“ ... the violin soloist's performance was marred by his rather thin, but still nasty tone ...”

“…. in the Brahms symphony, the playing of the principal horn was as unpolished as his instrument ... “

“ ... In the first movement, Mr Poshkins played his own cadenza -- why? ...”

“ ... the trombones seemed intent upon breaking the sound barrier. Certainly they nearly succeeded in bursting my eardrums ...”

“ ... the conductor took off at breakneck speed, causing the players to come off the track, section by section ... “

“ ... the orchestra's rendering of the National Anthem gave clear notice of the torment that was to follow ... “

or, by implication:

“ ... I stopped by at the Wigmore Hall to hear Mr. _______'s new piano sonata. `Good', is not the word!”

...........................................* * *..........................................


Well, there you are then. I think that sums up my opinion of those "experts" (TV proms viewers please note)

Now it's up to others to have their say.

VH

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just opened a new thread on the same topic, just 3 minutes after salymap. I've quickly closed it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

When I attended Halle concerts in the 1960s, all concerts were reviewed rather scathingly by Gerald Larner (The Guardian), and gushingly by John Robert Blunn Manchester Evening News. It was all rather predictable. Now The Guardian reviews occasion classical concerts, outnumbered by pop concerts.

[Mary Chambers]

i haven't looked up the quotation, but I think Britten (who had obviously just had a bad review) once referred to critics as 'vermin, living off others' leavings'. Something like that, anyway.

I read critics avidly, very easy these days with Google, but I take their opinions with several pinches of salt. They often contradict each other, and sometimes don't appear to know the works they're talking about. One of many good things about the internet is that a number of very knowledgeable amateur critics have emerged. I find them often better than the ones in newspapers, perhaps partly because they don't have to meet deadlines or keep to a limited number of words.

[Richard Tarleton]

Interesting to reflect that Berlioz and Schumann among doubtless several other great composers were also critics in their day. Is one problem the gulf today between practitioners and critics? Reading some of Hanslick's writings (I had a Picador paperback of them at one time) I wonder how much has changed? Oh dear - I almost recognise one of Ventilhorn's imaginary quotes (trombones/sound barrier) - doubtless the same critic as the "field artillery" one I quoted in the Groves thread . Sorry! (again).

[salymap]

I am very fond of a little book I own, G.B.S on Music especially as a lot of the concerts reviewed took place in the Salle Erard, a hall that comprised the top floor of the old Augener building in Great Marlborough Street, where I worked for a number of years. Whether Shaw was a good music critic I'm not sure as he frequently went 'off topic' to describe the social scene. He favoured Wagner and Mozart, disliked Brahms intensely and did occasionally get down to an analytical review of the piece he was discussing. Anyway, not many of the present day critics will be read for pleasure in well over one hundred years time.

[PJPJ]

Anyway, not many of the present day critics will be read for pleasure in well over one hundred years time.

Sadly, I agree with you.

[cavatina]

VH: very clever...kudos! You nailed it.

Anyway, not many of the present day critics will be read for pleasure in well over one hundred years time.
Sadly, I agree with you.

Seconded. Jacques Barzun once said "the aim of a critic, beyond that of saying what he thinks, is to make two thoughts grow where only one grew before". I never had the chance to write the kind of reviews I'd ideally like to have written because 1) I simply didn't have the room 2) anybody who thinks philosophical musicology has any place in a medium-sized newspaper needs his head examined. I don't think most of the hard prep work I put in showed, but at least I felt confident in what I was offering to the few readers I had.

[EdgeleyRob]

Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been a statue erected to a critic. (Jean Sibelius)

or

I had a dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya. (Igor Stravinsky)

'Nuff said !

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do remember the music critic on one national newspaper reviewing Rattle's Das Rheingold at the Proms. He obvious never even attended the concert. He evidently guessed that the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment would be using very little vibrato (and said this), but this was very far from being the case - not by any stretch of the imagination.

[Serial_Apologist]

The artist is not always possessed of the means verbally to put across the significance of his or her work. Many will say, "my work speaks for itself", and get sarcastic remarks in return. I've never reviewed anything I did not understand or like. On the other hand I've never been paid for doing such work, so I'm not in a position to pass comment on those who do. While the critic is in a privileged position, and being dependent on art in this instance should never get too big for his or her boots, s/he may be doing artist and public a favour if making people aware and acting as the artist's erstwhile mouthpiece; but it is easy to misinterpret, even if one knows the score, literally or metaphorically!

S-A

[cavatina]

SA: interesting points; thanks.

I wonder how many promising careers have been damaged just because somebody happened to think up a callow pun or catty one-liner. And then there are those who try to play the influence peddler. [Unnecessarily inflammatory paragraph deleted.]

As someone once said, "Music is spiritual. The music business, however, is not."

[Serial_Apologist]

And then there are those who try to play the influence peddler. [Unnecessarily inflammatory paragraph deleted.]

You mean critics who live off the reputation of those they write about?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I may be wrong, but I've heard that condemnation by a critic can be very damaging in the USA, but over here, audiences don't take them very seriously at all.