Music Critics

[Serial_Apologist]

What does that actually mean?

There might just be something in that statement of jayne's if she's thinking of some aboriginal peoples, or prescience regarding wiser ways of thinking and leading lifestyles to be detected in a very few mainly nonwestern religious or more accurately "spiritual" traditions we might learn a few things from. But we need more specificity.

[jayne lee wilson]

What does that actually mean?

The Gramophone from the 50s to around the 90s had a group of writers (Salter, Nichols, Swain, Harvey, Cooke, Osborne, Humphreys, Borwick etc.) with profound, comparative knowledge of music and catalogue, and keen awareness of the influences of playback systems on opinions themselves. They usually listened on very truthful, revealing equipment, which gave their reviews and features an authoritative yet undidactic quality born of "slow listening".
Delving among the archive can be an extraordinary experience. There was a generous-spirited openness to different interpretative approaches (and willingness to listen again and revise one's view) instead of the very polarised or dismissive opinionation you see too often today. (About HIPPS and "non-HIPPS", for example: Osborne could be as enthusiastic for Norrington was he was about Klemperer. And still can be. Or consider the puzzlement or rejection greeting Venzago's Bruckner from those who've heard little beyond Wand or Karajan, Jochum or Celi - sadly a recent Gramophone reviewer seemed to fall into the same trap. Online and in print. ...).

Many online reviews now, whether magazine-based on not, are too often written and posted, too quickly, from a patchy comparative knowledge of recordings heard on equipment that obviously distorts judgement, as you can tell if you have the recordings to hand.

I called it arcane for its rarity - both in the individuals who offered it, and the conditions which allowed it to develop. The sheer number of releases today, both new and the avalanche of (re- re-)reissues, and the way they are often listened to, make such a thing all but impossible now.

(So maybe I did believe in a golden age all along.......)

[Alison]

Thanks Jayne. At first I thought you were being a shade fanciful but you have provided a good explanation.

[mahlerei]

There's a story - possibly apocryphal - that a Gramophone critic reviewed the Solti Ring on a Dansette...

[Alison]

Not many reviews discuss listening equipment when you think about it!

I did also much enjoy the Sounds in Retrospect items that I assume Jayne has in mind.

In fact all the retrospects inGramophone were a thoroughly good read and fondly remembered in this household.

[gurnemanz]

There's a story - possibly apocryphal - that a Gramophone critic reviewed the Solti Ring on a Dansette...

Whilst a penniless student I borowed Solti's Gotterdammerung on LP from Croydon Library and transferred it via a rather crappy record player to reel-to-feel tape. As far as I remember the result was not that awful.

[5against4]

Not many reviews discuss listening equipment when you think about it!

This is a good point, as is Jayne's remark about lossy/streaming recordings. For my part, i insist always on lossless audio, which usually comes in the form of a physical CD, sometimes as a download. There are a few distributors and labels who don't send out promo copies and only make lossy audio available to reviewers—Outheremusic to name but one—but while i have very occasionally in the past reviewed something on the strength (that's the wrong word) of compressed audio, i wouldn't do that anymore.

As far as equipment is concerned (dons geek hat), the lossless audio is played via iTunes through an Arcam amplifier and thence to floor-standing Kef speakers. For super-close listening i have Sennheiser HD 25-1 II headphones.

So in short, the quality of the audio and the quality of the equipment are both vital.

[mahlerei]

Whilst a penniless student I borowed Solti's Gotterdammerung on LP from Croydon Library and transferred it via a rather crappy record player to reel-to-feel tape. As far as I remember the result was not that awful.

Those were the days. I did much the same thing, but on to cassette, and the results were just fine. As a hard-up student I used the the local record library all the time. They got to know me and often kept new LPs for me. Bless 'em.

[Richard Barrett]

The Gramophone from the 50s to around the 90s had a group of writers (Salter, Nichols, Swain, Harvey, Cooke, Osborne, Humphreys, Borwick etc.) with profound, comparative knowledge of music and catalogue, and keen awareness of the influences of playback systems on opinions themselves. They usually listened on very truthful, revealing equipment, which gave their reviews and features an authoritative yet undidactic quality born of "slow listening".
Delving among the archive can be an extraordinary experience. There was a generous-spirited openness to different interpretative approaches (and willingness to listen again and revise one's view) instead of the very polarised or dismissive opinionation you see too often today. (About HIPPS and "non-HIPPS", for example: Osborne could be as enthusiastic for Norrington was he was about Klemperer. And still can be. Or consider the puzzlement or rejection greeting Venzago's Bruckner from those who've heard little beyond Wand or Karajan, Jochum or Celi - sadly a recent Gramophone reviewer seemed to fall into the same trap. Online and in print. ...).

Many online reviews now, whether magazine-based on not, are too often written and posted, too quickly, from a patchy comparative knowledge of recordings heard on equipment that obviously distorts judgement, as you can tell if you have the recordings to hand.

I called it arcane for its rarity - both in the individuals who offered it, and the conditions which allowed it to develop. The sheer number of releases today, both new and the avalanche of (re- re-)reissues, and the way they are often listened to, make such a thing all but impossible now.

(So maybe I did believe in a golden age all along.......)

I would say the present-day situation is different rather than better or worse. For sure there's a lot of uninformed and superficially listened commentary around, but as far as I'm concerned this is more than offset by the existence of online communities (like this one) where, rather than opinions being handed down from on high by the kind of "high priests" (all male of course) that you mention, concerts, recordings and new works are actually discussed, without restrictions of space or (very important for magazines these days) the need to please advertisers.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There are a few distributors and labels who don't send out promo copies and only make lossy audio available to reviewers—Outheremusic to name but one—but while i have very occasionally in the past reviewed something on the strength (that's the wrong word) of compressed audio, i wouldn't do that anymore.

That's astonishing! How on earth can they expect representative reviews of their releases if they don't send out what they're actually selling?! Bizarre!

mahlerei: I think that John Culshaw complained in Ring Resounding about reviewers commenting on the sound quality of the recordings after having listened to them on lo-fi equipment. I think he also said that one of them had responded quite crossly that he was trying to listen in the same way that most people would experience the records, as opposed to how a Hi-Fi enthusiast would - rather missing the point Culshaw was making.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would say the present-day situation is different rather than better or worse. For sure there's a lot of uninformed and superficially listened commentary around, but as far as I'm concerned this is more than offset by the existence of online communities (like this one) where, rather than opinions being handed down from on high by the kind of "high priests" (all male of course) that you mention, concerts, recordings and new works are actually discussed, without restrictions of space or (very important for magazines these days) the need to please advertisers.

... and the other advantage of feedback/responses from others contributing to those communities supporting/refuting the opinions expressed by each other - precisely, a "community".

[Maclintick]

I would say the present-day situation is different rather than better or worse. For sure there's a lot of uninformed and superficially listened commentary around, but as far as I'm concerned this is more than offset by the existence of online communities (like this one) where, rather than opinions being handed down from on high by the kind of "high priests" (all male of course) that you mention, concerts, recordings and new works are actually discussed, without restrictions of space or (very important for magazines these days) the need to please advertisers.

I don't think the expression of opinion or musical criticism in online communities is inherently any more or less virtuous than those of bylined print media critics, in respect of the latter being presumed to have some sort of remit to please their paymasters. FWIW, I'm very grateful to those "high priests" listed by JLW -- I'd add John Warrack, Stephen Walsh, Hugh Ottaway, among others -- for the enlightening part they played in my musical education from the 60s onwards, & have no reason to believe their judgements were swayed by advertisers.

It's an easy jibe that in those days they constituted an all-male caste, but even in 2017 an unfortunate gender imbalance still applies in the anoraky online hi-fi fraternities, sorry, communities, Stereophile, Gearslutz etc, which are almost exclusively male-dominated. Happily the situation in musical criticism both online & in print is much healthier than 40 years ago.

[teamsaint]

Unfortunately, sideswipes at entire professions/ocupations, and members thereof are common. A very depressing situation.

You know, Estate agents/journalists/lawyers/plumbers/sales people/buyers/politicians ( fair enough I suppose) etc etc.



( Somewhat unbelievably, at a low key and generally rather pleasant trade fair recently, guest speaker Jacqueline Wilson, I was told to my face by a delegate who wasn't a buyer,that there was nothing she hated more than sales people.This at a trade show. Where the idea is to , nicely , sell books to trade buyers).

[Richard Barrett]

no reason to believe their judgements were swayed by advertisers.

Hence my "these days".

It's an easy jibe

It was a factual observation, not a jibe. And as you say it's still largely true of gearheads.

For me personally the "interactivity" of the present situation is a definite plus in many ways. Not only critics but also composers and performers used to be necessarily somewhat distant from their listeners, fostering once more a view of artists as isolated individuals, somehow "different" from ordinary human beings, whereas now it's clear that they aren't!

[Maclintick]

Hence my "these days".
It was a factual observation, not a jibe. And as you say it's still largely true of gearheads.

For me personally the "interactivity" of the present situation is a definite plus in many ways. Not only critics but also composers and performers used to be necessarily somewhat distant from their listeners, fostering once more a view of artists as isolated individuals, somehow "different" from ordinary human beings, whereas now it's clear that they aren't!

I'm not at all sure in what sense advertising hasn't always been important to magazines, for as long as these have existed, but there you are.

On the view of "artists as isolated individuals", I believe that modern-day celeb-culture and globally increasing inegalitarianism (if there's such a word) has created a greater gulf between music practitioners in general and their audiences. In the immediate post-war period, pre-Arts Council, the era I grew up in along with many of the posters on this forum, that of local government-funded record-libraries, the Music Service's free music tuition & loan of instruments -- what Tom Service correctly identified as the UK's "Sistema", in fact -- it was quite usual for internationally-renowned performers to appear in venues which today's international classical glitterati would disdainfully shun as "the sticks". I heard Fischer-Dieskau & Gerald Moore perform Schubert in a provincial university lecture-theatre. Artur Rubinstein would drag his piano (not personally, I imagine that he had helpers) around the country because, presumably, he felt a need to bring music to the people. Today's interactivity may be fine, for all I know, but I think post-war egalitarianism had a lot going for it, as well.