The Art of Music Criticism

[Thropplenoggin]

Notoriously difficult to write about, sometimes you come across words which inspire one to seek out the music:

‘It sounds as if somebody had smeared the score of [Wagner’s] Tristan when it was still wet.' The Vienna Tonkunstlerverein jury on Schoenberg's 'Verklarte Nacht'. Meant as a rebuke but to me it reads like a compliment!

'Anton Webern raised his baton before a chamber orchestra which included a guitar, mandolin, and cow bells. From the silence there escaped into sound wafts of strangely beautiful colour. The ear caught wraith-like wisps of melody which, as smoke, eddied for a moment and then dissolved. A sudden shimmer of iridescence where form and colour became one - and then the silence gently withdrew from us that of which we had scarcely become aware. Only a true musical poet could give us these fugitive glimpses of a new and fascinating world of sound.' From the Christian Science Monitor (I haven't been able to locate the critic!) Doesn't that make you want to run and listen to Webern!

Incidentally, Tom Service is currently doing an admirable job of music criticism at The Guardian in his '50 Greatest Symphonies' series.

[antongould]

Magical stuff Thropps .......and shamefully as a Grauniad reader I wasn't aware of the TS top 50.....that sort of thing has been known to inspire a thread and/or a list........

[teamsaint]

lovely examples, @Noggo.

[richardfinegold]

some of the greatest music critics of all time:
1) George Bernard Shaw
2) Robert Schumann
3) Hector Berlioz
4) Edward Hanslick

Frequently their judgements have famously not stood the verdict of time, but they are always fascinating to read.

[Alison]

some of the greatest music critics of all time:
1) George Bernard Shaw
2) Robert Schumann
3) Hector Berlioz
4) Edward Hanslick


Frequently their judgements have famously not stood the verdict of time, but they are always fascinating to read.

Don't forget Harriet Smith. Thanks.

[Sir Velo]

Others, lest we forget:

Jerrold Northrop Moore
Michael Kennedy
H.C. Robbins Landon
Felix Aprahamian
Richard Osborne
Robert Layton
Bryce Morrison

Apart from their critical apercus it's their prose style which makes each of these writers a joy to read.

Don't forget Harriet Smith. Thanks.

Not one that immediately comes to mind.

[kea]

Famously:

If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students were to compose a programme symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell. ~ Cesar Cui

Possibly the only time I've ever been seriously tempted to listen to Rachmaninov. :P

[gurnemanz]

+ Alan Blyth

Nostalgia corner: I remembered a similar thread from the old Beeb Board

[Sir Velo]

From the inimitable pen of Cardus, the following bons mots:

Of the Rite: "a sophisticated exploitation of primitive rum-ti-tum";

On meeting Delius in 1930: "There was nothing pitiable in him, nothing inviting sympathy in this wreck of a physique. He was wrapped in a monk-like gown, and his face was strong and disdainful, every line on it graven by intrepid living."

"(Delius') music looks back on days intensely lived through; it knows the pathos of mortal things doomed to fade and vanish."

(On a performance of The Magic Flute): "The opera in fact is the only one in existence that might conceivably have been composed by God."

[Flosshilde]

From the inimitable pen of Cardus, the following bons mots:

Of the Rite: "a sophisticated exploitation of primitive rum-ti-tum";

(On a performance of The Magic Flute): "The opera in fact is the only one in existence that might conceivably have been composed by God."

Perhaps he was more perceptive writing about cricket

[EdgeleyRob]

"The immoral profession of musical criticism must be abolished."

Richard Wagner

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps he was more perceptive writing about cricket

My thoughts exactly, Floss - "inimitable"? Let's hope.

How feeble, how petty-minded and weak-spirited seem Cardus' mots (failed on the emissions), even in its own terms - but when compared to Tovey, or Rosen, or Solomon, or Hopkins ... or even Newman!

[amateur51]

+ Alan Blyth

Nostalgia corner: I remembered a similar thread from the old Beeb Board

... + Michael Oliver

[amateur51]

Perhaps he was more perceptive writing about cricket

I wonder if he applied his advice to cricket correspondents to his own musical criticism

[Nick Armstrong]

Not one that immediately comes to mind.

Not for the first time, Sir V, you type my thought!

Cardus is marvellous.

I love this consideration of Mozart's music by Carl Nielsen (which chimes with my experience of being 'put to' playing Mozart too early and finding it deadly dull):

“It is an offence against Mozart (and against the young student of music) for a teacher to set his pupil to play Mozart’s sonatas and quartets as soon as he has acquired a modicum of technique. It is barbarous, in fact, and will only spoil the pupil’s desire to study Mozart subsequently. How can we expect young people to appreciate the exquisitely alternating moods of this music, or feel the beauty of an art which expresses itself with such restraint and in so strangely spiritual a manner! What youth wants, above all else, is something it can grasp, something it can lay hold on with both hands. But the content of Mozart’s music is the least tangible, and so it is better to let the young musician get his fingers into Chopin and Liszt than choke the life out of Mozart. Later, however, when a measure of spiritual maturity has been attained, and the executive musician must learn to exercise not only his fingers but his mind and his soul, then the music of Mozart will be infinitely instructive. . .”