The Art of Music Criticism

[Sir Velo]

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. . .”

Cf Schnabel's celebrated apophthegm: "Mozart's sonatas are too easy for children but too difficult for adults".

I think one or two members have got rather too exercised by the Cardus quotations. They were written to be mischievous, playful and provocative alike. His style was, in fact, a conscious reaction to the objectivity of Newman of whom, incidentally, Cardus was a great admirer. What Cardus' writings all evince, however, is his wonderful ability to use the English language. His essays are to be enjoyed on their own terms whether or not one agrees with the underlying sentiment.

[Gordon]

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

Richard Wagner

Except when that critic is Wagner!

Anyone mention Hans Keller?

[Flosshilde]

I think one or two members have got rather too exercised by the Cardus quotations.

Don't take it to heart too much, my response was

written to be mischievous, playful and provocative alike.

[Richard Tarleton]

Charles Burney was dismissive of Dowland -

After being at the pains of scoring several of Dowland's compositions [] I have been equally disappointed and astonished at his scanty abilities in counterpoint, and the great reputation he acquired with his contemporaries, which has been courteously continued to him, either by the indolence or ignorance of those who have had occasion to speak of him, and who took it for granted that his title to fame , as a profound musician, was well founded

Which just goes to show how wrong you can be

[Flosshilde]

No doubt I'll quickly be put right, but I wonder how much music criticism there is now, compared with even 50 or 60 years ago? There are plenty of reviews of concerts (some rather perfunctory) but I would think that music criticism is mainly about new music (notwithstanding Dr Burney's comments on Dowland posted by RT), & my feeling is that the performance of new music is rather less than it was in the past

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... the Cardus quotations ... were written to be mischievous, playful and provocative alike.

Oh, I see - a sort of Music critical Eddie Mehr?

What Cardus' writings all evince, however, is his wonderful ability to use the English language. His essays are to be enjoyed on their own terms whether or not one agrees with the underlying sentiment.

This is what I most find absent from Cardus' prose, which comes across as Wodehouse with haemorrhoids. Compare your examples with this (from someone for whom English was a second language):

You can come to a symphony by listening to it, but you cannot come to a String Quartet without playing it. The String Quartet is the esoteric symphony, and the more esoteric a truth, the more more absolute the need for its immediate experience,. You cannot confess or be psycho-analysed by proxy.

... mischievous, playful, provocative beyond Cardus' imaginings, and profoundly, disturbingly, confrontationally TRUE!

[Alison]

Hans Keller was before my time. Folk seem to refer to him when they're reaching for gravitas. Did he know his stuff?

[subcontrabass]

Hans Keller was before my time. Folk seem to refer to him when they're reaching for gravitas. Did he know his stuff?

From my recollections of his work on the Third Programme "Invitation Concerts" and also attending classes that he gave at the Durham Twentieth Century Music Summer School in 1964 he most certainly did know his stuff.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hans Keller was before my time. Folk seem to refer to him when they're reaching for gravitas. Did he know his stuff?

In the areas in which I heard him, definitely, I reckon. There was an analysis of the Schoenberg second string quartet - the one with the soprano introduced in the final two movements - in which he described the final C major resolution, at the work's very end, as going back beyond Beethoven, even Bach, all the way to Monteverdi!

[Hornspieler]

I think that the title of this thread leads one to only one side of the topic..

Substitute the words "Critical appraisal" or (or even "Concert Review") for the word "Criticism" and the scope of the discussion is immediately widended and the question of objectivity becomes one of the cores of the discussion. Every time that I read a review of a performance; whether it be in the National Press, or on these message boards, I ask myself ..." .. is this a subjective or truly objective assessment of what took place?

Hs

[amateur51]

I think that the title of this thread leads one to only one side of the topic..

Substitute the words "Critical appraisal" or (or even "Concert Review") for the word "Criticism" and the scope of the discussion is immediately widended and the question of objectivity becomes one of the cores of the discussion. Every time that I read a review of a performance; whether it be in the National Press, or on these message boards, I ask myself ..." .. is this a subjective or truly objective assessment of what took place?

Hs

I'm not sure what the value difference would be between the two types of review that you mention, HS. Good old Edward Greenfield's reviews were always full of "ripe & romantic"-type phraseology (subjective) but then he always threw in details from his stopwatch ("Knappertsbusch take fully four minutes longer than Toscanini in this movement alone" (objective). Which element is the more important, I wonder?

I like reviews that offer elements of both but if pushed I'd chuck the objectivity

[Barbirollians]

It is surely very hard to be objective in musical criticism as music moves us - hence your head and score might tell you that the performance is "wrong " or that the interpreter is taking liberties but the result is thrilling and immensely moving . On occasions for example could that not be said about Silvestri , Barbirolli etc . Another example would be du pre's Elgar Concerto recordings which I have read lots of criticisms saying how she does all manner of things not in the score - yet it clearly moves people in way other performances just don't .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think HS has hit the spot - there is a difference between the sort of newspaper copy that Cardus (and others) had to produce regularly and quickly and the considered analyses that Keller (and Simpson, Rosen, Tovey, Solomon etc etc) were able to spend time producing books and articles for learned journals. It's unfair of me to expect Cardus to be able to say anything of more than passing interest in the circumstances under which he worked (and his book on the early Symphonies of Mahler show greater perception - and if he seems content to comment mainly on thematic material, his "remit" there was to introduce unknown Music to a wider public.)

I don't seem to care for journalists' copy (not even Corno di Bassetto's) - but the work of the analysts I find spellbinding.

Just a subjective response.

[Thropplenoggin]

All views welcome. My motivation in starting the thread was to acknowledge how difficult it is to talk about music, and then to marvel at how some criticism, wherever it be found, can move us to want to seek out the music it describes.

Think of 'Mann's' examination of Beethoven's op.111 in Doctor Faustus.

[Tevot]

Hello there,

Regarding Hans Keller - I know of him from the clip / linked below where he has an encounter with (of all people) Pink Floyd! He was I believe an expert on Haydn's chamber music and was if I'm not mistaken the dedicatee of Britten's 3rd String Quartet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vc7XA5M7Y

Best Wishes,

Tevot