# Do You Regard Music Critics As Special?



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Here is a brief discussion between music critic *Alex Ross* and music/culture blogger *AC Douglas*.

*Alex Ross:* I have to admit I never got that old "dancing about architecture" joke, which has been attributed variously to Schopenhauer, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Snuffleupagus. Why is music more difficult to write about than any other art form? [...] Here is my choice aphorism: writing about music is like writing.

*AC Douglas:* While I suspect that in writing the above Alex was being just a teensy-weensy bit, um, ironically cavalier, I'll respond by simply remarking that, as skilled a writer on music as Alex is, he surely can't imagine that his prose, even at its most lapidary and eloquent, can capture even a minim of the essential character of a piece of music which merely a single hearing of the music itself would afford but a casual listener. Alone of the arts, music addresses and speaks directly to the center of feeling, bypassing altogether, and with no need of the interposition of, the intellectual faculty. For one to imagine that one could capture and transmit even the smallest part of the essential character of such a thing through the agency of a medium that requires the fullest interposition of the intellectual faculty to even begin to comprehend is, well, unimaginable.

*************

I absolutely agree with AC Douglas on this topic.

I will admit that verbal communication about music is sometimes fun to read as a leisure activity but the notion that words can help someone HEAR a piece of music _better_ I've always thought to be total nonsense.

If a person makes a sincere effort to listen attentively, actively, critically, patiently to a musical work and still found it unrewardng, why would someone else's words change your mind?

I will also say that there exists no genuine music - from the classics to the most avant-garde - that doesn't speak for itself by itself, and the notion that any music is so "difficult" that it cannot be comprehended at some level by an intelligent lay audience is simply idiotic.... Of course this is not to say that a study of such "difficult" music - either formally or simply by *repeated hearings* - is not a worthwhile activity that will serve to both deepen and enrich understanding. It most decidedly is, OUTSIDE, the concert experience which experience should be devoted exclusively to the attentive listening to the work being performed.

Genuine music speaks most eloquently for itself by itself always, and is in no need of words to either explain or justify itself. That's in fact what makes music music and is almost a definition of what music is about.

I am so utterly convinced that music is a locked mystery, to which it holds the only key.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

I have never been too involved into 'musical critiques'. Also I do not get too much into the life and the 'drama' of composers. What is important is the 'Listening Experience'; that one which hardly or even can't be expressed by words. 

Musical judgements like such and such composer did or did not such and such things can be of some interest but not fundamental for the 'Listening Experience'. 

'Listening Experience' is out from the reach of any criticism, at least for me.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

No, Xavier, I don't agree. A music critic knows more about music than I do and can give me background, relate it to other pieces of music, point out a motif or an interesting use of particular instruments. That will enhance my enjoyment. 

It won't (probably) change my mind about whether I like a piece or not.

As an English teacher, I often had students tell me how they thought it 'destroyed' a poem, learning to analyse it. Maybe at first. But when you've learned how to pick out metaphors & other devices, it actually informs your response & the experience you get helps you to comprehend more the next time you read a new poem. It doesn't, in the end, spoil your enjoyment. And six months into their course, these same students would tell me how much they were enjoying the complex poetry they were studying and be pleased that they'd acquired analytical skills.

Not to say that critics can't be terribly wrong, bumptious, ill-informed et al. But good criticism can help.
And a bad critic can help you formulate your own response as you yell at him & pelt him with rotten tomatoes (metaphorically speaking).

Critics are just 'talking about music' - er, what are we doing *here* on this forum?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> No, Xavier, I don't agree. A music critic knows more about music than I do and can give me background, relate it to other pieces of music, point out a motif or an interesting use of particular instruments. That will enhance my enjoyment.


You can listen to Wagner as a set of nice tunes (apologies to any Wagnerian reading this) and on that level it makes sense. But it makes a lot more sense if you can identify the leitmotifs relevant to each character and spot how they are used and how they intertwine. You don't have to go as far as Hans von Wolzogen and turn it into a roman a clef (pardon the pun!) but an understanding of how they work will enhance the pleasure.

Similarly, somebody was going on about canons in a separate thread. Again, that to me is mind music and needs sometimes quite a bit of analysis to see what is happening. There is also the problem for performers that they need a deep technical understanding of what is going on if they are to decide how to sing a particular puzzle canon.

Critics are necessary and you can't just "feel" the music - it deserves more.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I haven't read the Ross quote in its full context, but I disagree with AC Douglas in that I doubt that Ross is saying that his writing can convey the same sort of music content that the actual music can. Douglas seems to be implying that Ross thinks that writing can reproduce the music in some sense, but I don't think that's what good writers on music are trying to do. Writing about music is still worthwhile though (this shouldn't take any convincing for people on a music forum). And it's no stranger than writing about visual art, or even writing about writing.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Ingenue,



> As an English teacher, I often had students tell me how they thought it 'destroyed' a poem, learning to analyse it. Maybe at first. But when you've learned how to pick out metaphors & other devices, it actually informs your response & the experience you get helps you to comprehend more the next time you read a new poem.


This is completely different. This is language... Of course one can profitably use words to explain how a drama, poem, narrative, etc works to affect a receiver.

Words are helpless to do the same for music.

I should have stressed in my OP that I'm referring to music criticism only.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I agree, the best way to get a description of a piece of music is to listen to it.

This does _not_ mean it's the _only_ way.

I arbitrarily picked the Wikipedia entry for the "Hammerklavier" sonata and found this:



> I. Allegro
> Duration of roughly 11-12 minutes.
> 
> The first movement opens with a series of fortissimo B-flat major chords, which form much of the basis of the first subject. After the first subject is spun out for a while, the opening set of fortissimo chords are stated again, this time followed by a similar rhythm on the unexpected chord of D major. This ushers in the more lyrical second subject in the submediant (that is, a minor third below the tonic), G major. A third and final musical subject appears after this, which hints at G minor by chromatic alterations of the third scale degree, as well as the minor subdominant C minor. The exposition ends with a largely stepwise figure in the treble clef in a high register, while the left hand moves in an octave-outlining accompaniment in eighth notes. The development section opens with a statement of this final figure, except with alterations from the major subdominant to the minor, which fluidly modulates to E-flat major. Directly after, the exposition's first subject is composed in fugato and features an incredible display of musical development. The fugato ends with a section featuring non-fugal imitation between registers, eventually resounding in repeated D major chords. The final section of the development begins with a chromatic alteration of D natural to D-sharp. The music progresses to the alien key of B major, in which the third and first subjects of the exposition are played. The retransition is brought about by a sequence of rising intervals that get progressively higher, until the first theme is stated again in the home key of B-flat, signalling the beginning of the recapitulation. In keeping with Beethoven's exploration of the potentials of sonata form, the recapitulation avoids a full harmonic return to B-flat until long after the return to the first theme. The movement ends with a coda, and the final notes feature one of the rare fortississimo (ƒƒƒ) indications in Beethoven's work.


That's a dry-as-dust description of the music, and though it won't necessarily improve anyone's enjoyment of the music, at least it gives some formal examination of what's going on, which for some listeners could be useful.

But that description is preceded by these comments:


> In addition to the thematic connections within the movements and the use of traditional Classical formal structures, Charles Rosen has described how much of the piece is organized around the motif of a descending third (major or minor). This descending third is quite ubiquitous throughout the work, but most clearly recognizable in the following sections: the opening fanfare of the Allegro; in the Scherzo's mocking imitation of the aforementioned fanfare, as well as in its trio theme; in bar two of the Adagio; and in the Fugue in both its introductory bass octave-patterns and in the main subject, as the seven-note runs which end up on notes descended by thirds. It is perhaps the first major piano work (if not work of any instrumentation) to so thoroughly incorporate a Baroque contrapuntal style (the fugue) within an originally Classical structure (the sonata form).


Yes, you can hear all these things in the music if you listen. But surely there's some value to having such connections pointed out to you in one handy place? Might as well criticise a book's index on the grounds that "all this is in the book if you just read it".

As for the bit about a critic "changing your mind", unless there's more to the Ross/Douglas conversation than is quoted here, this seems to be a bit straw-mannish. Either way, I don't see why music should be the sole field of human endeavour in which a well-reasoned argument would _never_ change someone's mind about something.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Taggart said:


> You can listen to Wagner as a set of nice tunes (apologies to any Wagnerian reading this) and on that level it makes sense. But it makes a lot more sense if you can identify the leitmotifs relevant to each character and spot how they are used and how they intertwine. You don't have to go as far as Hans von Wolzogen and turn it into a roman a clef (pardon the pun!) but an understanding of how they work will enhance the pleasure.
> 
> Similarly, somebody was going on about canons in a separate thread. Again, that to me is mind music and needs sometimes quite a bit of analysis to see what is happening. There is also the problem for performers that they need a deep technical understanding of what is going on if they are to decide how to sing a particular puzzle canon.
> 
> Critics are necessary and you can't just "feel" the music - it deserves more.


Nonsense.

I am extolling the virtues of patient, repeated listenings that take one deeper into a work and make the sensitive listener aware of the workings of the music… Just because a listener doesn't know, say, the nomenclature of the harmonic patterns doesn't mean he or she is not *aware* of these goings-on.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Taggart said:


> You can listen to Wagner as a set of nice tunes (apologies to any Wagnerian reading this) and on that level it makes sense. But it makes a lot more sense if you can identify the leitmotifs relevant to each character and spot how they are used and how they intertwine. You don't have to go as far as Hans von Wolzogen and turn it into a roman a clef (pardon the pun!) but an understanding of how they work will enhance the pleasure.


Yes! I listened to Deryck Cooke's introduction to the Ring at the time I first discovered Wagner. God knows how many hours of "patient listening" he saved me!


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

AC Douglas seems to take it for granted that a music critic tries to replicate the musical experience in words. But do music critics really claim to do that? Aren't they simply talking _about_ music rather than purporting to provide a verbal substitute for music? If I ask someone what he thought about seeing the Grand Canyon, I don't expect that his or her words will give me the same experience as seeing the Grand Canyon itself. I'm just interested in his take on it. Likewise, if I read a music critic's opinion about last night's performance of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, I don't expect the concert review to be a substitute for attending the concert or hearing the symphony itself. I'm just interested in his or her view, as food for thought and a point of comparison. It's a supplement, not a replacement.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I think music criticism can be of varying kinds. Much may not play a role in allowing someone to better enjoy a work. Certainly some music writing can vastly increase our knowledge of works, and for many, that is much appreciated.



Xavier said:


> I will admit that verbal communication about music is sometimes fun to read as a leisure activity but the notion that words can help someone HEAR a piece of music _better_ I've always thought to be total nonsense.
> 
> If a person makes a sincere effort to listen attentively, actively, critically, patiently to a musical work and still found it unrewardng, why would someone else's words change your mind?


For me these statements are empirically false. My daughter, a music student, has occasionally pointed out various features or parts of certain works, and when I listened to that work in the future I was able to hear things _consciously_ that I had not heard before. Of course I _heard_ those features unconsciously before, but the particular effect my daughter pointed out did not register. So I did hear the work better after she explained those things to me.

Words apparently _can_ allow one to change from disliking to enjoying a work. I listened to Berg's Violin Concerto many times without much success in enjoying the work. I found a audio file online that discussed the work in detail describing features of a small part and then playing that part. After listening to the file a couple of times, I listened to the concerto, and within one or two listenings I found myself enjoying it. I find it hard to believe that the words on that file did not contribute significantly to my ability to enjoy the work.

Now it's possible that I'm simply a poor listener who needs to be led through certain music. I suspect that I'm relatively average, but either way, words do seem to have the capability of increasing some people's enjoyment of music.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Just because a listener doesn't know, say, the nomenclature of the harmonic patterns doesn't mean he or she is not *aware* of these goings-on.


As a former teacher of music theory and musicianship, I can assure you that not every listener is aware of these goings-on, even after repeated listenings. A novice can listen to the overture to Tristan a dozen times, but if he or she is not attuned enough to the way harmony works, he or she will not necessarily hear all of those deceptive cadences. As musicians we like to imagine that music is universal enough that anyone can hear the _effect_ of a deceptive cadence even if they've never learned that exact term or concept, but it just doesn't work that way, at least not always. For a lot of listeners, the effect of unresolved cadences is simply not on their radar. It's not that they hear a certain effect but can't describe it or put a name to it; it's that they hear no effect at all. The moments of non-resolution feel no different to them than any other moments.


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2013)

I have really got to stop writing responses and then going off to eat and do chores and then coming back to post without reading the most recent activity on a thread.

Eschbeg and others have already said, and said better, what follows my quote of Xavier. Oh well. Take it as confirmation of what those others have said, I guess.


Xavier said:


> *AC Douglas:*...as skilled a writer on music as Alex is, he surely can't imagine that his prose, even at its most lapidary and eloquent, can capture even a minim of the essential character of a piece of music which merely a single hearing of the music itself would afford but a casual listener.


And with this, AC shows how utterly fit he is to take part in online music forums. Perhaps we should invite him to TC!

But seriously, has Alex ever imagined or not imaged such a thing? I don't know, but I'm prepared to guess that Alex has never ever thought that capturing minims was what he was doing when he writes about music.

I'm also preparted to guess that AC probably knows perfectly well that "merely a single hearing of the music itself would afford but a casual listener" is full of error. A single hearing of a piece of familiar music might be a full-ish experience, even for a "casual" listener, but even multiple hearings of unfamiliar music can leave even experienced listeners utterly baffled. (Yes, I know perfectly well that in saying this, I too have indulged in a spot of deck stacking.)

Anyway, yes, there is something in music that is beyond criticism. I don't know that anyone would seriously argue otherwise. I don't think, however, that that is unique to music. It's true for painting and sculpture and architecture and dancing as well. It is even true for poetry, which like criticism is made of language.

And it's not terribly difficult or mysterious, either. Criticism is a different thing from creation. To conclude from that difference that criticism has nothing (or at least less than a minim) to contribute to our understanding and appreciation of creations is to simply ignore the role of the spectator in any art. Art is all well and good, but if no one is looking at it, if no one is listening to it, if no one is reading it, if no one is walking around in it or living in it, then there's really nothing going on.

That makes, as AC knows perfectly well, I'm sure, criticism an important part of the entire reality of which creation is a part.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Xavier said:


> Ingenue,
> 
> This is completely different. This is language... Of course one can profitably use words to explain how a drama, poem, narrative, etc works to affect a receiver.
> 
> ...


I don't see how writing about a poem and writing about music are any different. In neither case are they recreating the experience of the poem or the music, though words can certainly describe certain features of each and potentially illuminate them for some readers/listeners.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Xavier said:


> Nonsense.
> 
> I am extolling the virtues of patient, repeated listenings that take one deeper into a work and make the sensitive listener aware of the workings of the music… Just because a listener doesn't know, say, the nomenclature of the harmonic patterns doesn't mean he or she is not *aware* of these goings-on.


But if someone is not aware, they might profit by being educated about it. This is where words may do good service to music.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I'm personally not smart enough or insightful enough to pick up on everything worth paying attention to in a good piece of art (musical or otherwise). I sometimes look for assistance elsewhere. There's an accumulated store of shared cultural knowledge that I don't mind availing my self of from time to time. I can't do all the hard work myself.


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2013)

Indeed. Xavier has completely ignored that there are different ways to use language. Writing a treatise on molluscs is quite different from writing a poem about a snail.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I can understand certain forms of resistance to music criticism, which has basic problems that don't challenge writers about other arts in the same way. They are more analogous to the problems facing popular writers on science. Almost as few people are capable of following the bar-by-bar analyses of a Tovey or a Rosen (though they still buy the latter's books) as are capable of understanding the the equations of physicists. It can be hard to write analyses that are useful and fun for non-specialists and specialists alike. I'm always grateful to writers who find creative solutions to these inherent problems. 

The existence of the internet and itunes may obviate some of the difficulty. Master-classes and various other kinds of musical analysis with audio accompaniment are becoming increasingly available, though the possibilities of digital media are certainly not being exploited to the fullest as of yet. It seems just a matter of time before we get great stylists writing for the New Yorker and moonlighting on youtube.

The future, I think, is bright!


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I regard most music critics as _something_ but it ain't exactly 'special'.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

kv466 said:


> I regard most music critics as _something_ but it ain't exactly 'special'.


I don't think musicians should be allowed to participate in this thread!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Xavier said:


> This is completely different. This is language... Of course one can profitably use words to explain how a drama, poem, narrative, etc works to affect a receiver.
> 
> Words are helpless to do the same for music.
> 
> I should have stressed in my OP that I'm referring to music criticism only.


If words are helpless to do the same to music, tell me how it is actually (according to you) impossible that I can describe in English words how note rows work, how leitmotifs work, how counterpoint works, how I can analyse texture, form, orchestration, rhythm, melody, dynamics etc. etc. etc.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Xavier said:


> Nonsense.


I am glad you agree with my view of Wagner. 



Xavier said:


> I am extolling the virtues of patient, repeated listenings that take one deeper into a work and make the sensitive listener aware of the workings of the music… Just because a listener doesn't know, say, the nomenclature of the harmonic patterns doesn't mean he or she is not *aware* of these goings-on.


No but look at this comment on Wagner.



Nereffid said:


> Yes! I listened to Deryck Cooke's introduction to the Ring at the time I first discovered Wagner. God knows how many hours of "patient listening" he saved me!


Same thing applies to more complex music.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Here is a brief discussion between music critic *Alex Ross* and music/culture blogger *AC Douglas*.
> 
> *Alex Ross:* I have to admit I never got that old "dancing about architecture" joke, which has been attributed variously to Schopenhauer, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Snuffleupagus. Why is music more difficult to write about than any other art form? [...] Here is my choice aphorism: writing about music is like writing.
> 
> *AC Douglas:* While I suspect that in writing the above Alex was being just a teensy-weensy bit, um, ironically cavalier, I'll respond by simply remarking that, as skilled a writer on music as Alex is, he surely can't imagine that his prose, even at its most lapidary and eloquent, can capture even a minim of the essential character of a piece of music which merely a single hearing of the music itself would afford but a casual listener. Alone of the arts, music addresses and speaks directly to the center of feeling, bypassing altogether, and with no need of the interposition of, the intellectual faculty. For one to imagine that one could capture and transmit even the smallest part of the essential character of such a thing through the agency of a medium that requires the fullest interposition of the intellectual faculty to even begin to comprehend is, well, unimaginable.


I agree with both, wholeheartedly.

Mr. Douglas is near gushingly emoting about that which in words is impossible to directly communicate about music.

Mr. Ross, not caught up in either a public display of "just how profoundly sensitive he is," or "how agonizingly difficult it is to write about music well." is just stating a fact.

I would go further, and assume that because Mr. Ross is not so set to display himself, his emotions, or his agony in the difficulty of writing about music, that I would more than likely prefer to read his critiques, and find them of greater interest and value, than the critiques of Mr. Douglas, who seems to me to be much more clearly in the center of his own spotlight.

P.s. The word _special_ has become, to me and I believe many others, riddled with irony, and / or become so used in such a twee manner that it has become repellent. No, professional music critics are no more special than any other in any field who has a long training and practice in any area or discipline, i.e. they are no more "special" than any expert.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Everyone is a critic of some kind so like anyone I take a critique with a grain of salt. As Sibelius said: "Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic."


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

Special as in "set apart from others by virtue of their extensive knowledge on the subject at hand" or "*short bus*" special.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Xavier said:


> ...
> I will admit that verbal communication about music is sometimes fun to read as a leisure activity but the notion that words can help someone HEAR a piece of music _better_ I've always thought to be total nonsense.
> 
> If a person makes a sincere effort to listen attentively, actively, critically, patiently to a musical work and still found it unrewardng, why would someone else's words change your mind?
> ...


Yes, music can speak for itself and ultimately it will communicate different things to different listeners. However I get a lot out of reading about music from a broad range of sources. Currently I am going back to sources as far back as the mid 20th century to get added info and insights on classical music, mainly warhorses actually. I got some ancient books, and they have opened up many things, both historical and technical, that I didn't know or pay attention to in these pieces before. Incidentally, on my long weekend posting on current listening I go into some insights as well as info garnered from these sources and beyond.

Of course, its not easy to talk about or write about music. I know, since I try to be thorough and think about what I write in that posting. Drafting it most often takes at least an hour. Saint-Saens, who was a critic besides being a composer like many of them back then, said that the hardest thing to do is to talk about music. Then there's Vladimir Ashkenazy, one of the world's top conductors of his generation, said in this article I made the topic of this thread why he prefers to talk as little about music as possible: http://www.talkclassical.com/24082-vladimir-ashkenazy-not-talking.html

Here is another post I did on a related issue, a critic/reviewer talking about the jaded, burnt out and impossible to please (eg. grumblebum) critic, probably the worse kind of critic there is!: http://www.talkclassical.com/24418-admit-youre-bored-i.html#post432783

I think that its good to talk about music, otherwise why would I be here? Its up to each individual member whether they pay attention to these types of things. I like to describe music and I like to read reviewers who do that same and add insights into things like history, technical innovations, cultural context and milieu and so on of a composer. I don't buy the "music is nothing but about itself line." I see it as just another tired old cliche of certain types of Modernist ideology. Its closely related to semantics too, that kind of impenetrable post-structuralist language. Well if you use that, maybe its not worth talking about music. I have plenty of time though for critics and writers on music who use good, clear English and convey their thinking in engaging and interesting ways.

But give this a thought. If its not worth conveying our thoughts on music in words, well than why dont' we give up on conveying our thoughts about anything? Of course language has its limitations, especially with music, but often I am reading these books for not only reasons related to the music but also for the same reason I would read other genres that I enjoy (eg. autobiography). So maybe we can turn the Modernist cliche around. "Music writing is about nothing but itself." So what? Maybe eating ice-cream, climbing a mountain or having a shave is about nothing but itself either. But I doubt it. Most things are connected to other things in some way or another. No man is an island, all that stuff...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'd add thae ingenenue, apricissimus, Nereffid and mmsbls opinions are ones I agree with here, overall. Its hard, especially in this day and age when everyone is so busy, to know everything. If a critic or writer on music can act as a kind of facilitator for the listener, well I see no harm in that. I as a non muso have benefited from reading good music criticism to no end, as well as doing things like attending pre concert talks.

But this -



Nereffid said:


> ...As for the bit about a critic "changing your mind", unless there's more to the Ross/Douglas conversation than is quoted here, this seems to be a bit straw-mannish. Either way, I don't see why music should be the sole field of human endeavour in which a well-reasoned argument would _never_ change someone's mind about something.


The "changing your mind" bit is what I see as criticism as being laced with too much ideology. Take two of the past that come readily to mind, Hanslick during the Brahms versus Wagner turf wars and also Adorno in his deification of Schoenberg and corresponding dissing of Sibelius. Now that's criticism that has been proven in hindsight at least to be heavily biased and basically an artefact of a certain era. There are writers though going as way back as them whose writings continue to illuminate and be of much use to today's listeners (and also music writers and anyone else who studies this area, basically). Its just like the best of music - good criticism will withstand the test of time. That's one of the markers of good writing, good music, good anything.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The newspaper critic can be quite canny and valuable as to the quality of a performance of a work.

Where it all falls apart, no matter what anyone says, is when a new work is performed, and the critic is by necessity either limited to a laundry-list like set of technical terms to describe the musical vocabulary of the piece, or an adjectival subjective bit of writing trying to convey the import, cerebral and / or visceral, the piece had.

None of that, even to the highly musically literate, the trained, can tell the reader at all, really, _what the piece actually sounds like._ There, then, the only worthwhile experience is having been there and heard the work, and all words fail to even remotely convey "what it actually sounded like."


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