critical mass, day 4

[calimac]

I've gotten a few comments on these posts to the effect that criticism is some kind of excrescence on the soul of art. If the commenters really believe that, I have to wonder why they're reading me, because critical response to the art I read, see, or hear is what I'm all about. Nobody's ever complained here that I review the concerts I attend, nor that I've moved to selling my reviews professionally. But I attend a conference to learn from the masters of my profession, and out the tired old anti-critical cliches come.

They should have attended Sunday's session - moved over to UC Berkeley in the morning, as the faculty and students were to attend a concert there in the afternoon (I didn't) - and learned what criticism is for, and why writers about music should learn it.

Tim Page said that journalism is not the only use for critical training. His former students have found their learning useful in any writing they do about music: biographies of composers and performers, program notes, arts planning documents.

John Rockwell said that criticism will continue inexorably, regardless of the crises of journalism, though it needs a new economic model. (Bloggers, he points out, are freer to specialize than sole critics for major papers are.) Criticism's purpose is to mediate between the music and the listeners: not to instruct the performers, or function as program notes, but to help listeners to translate the experience of listening and to give new and different perspectives.

Stephen Rubin said that he sponsored this institute with the goal of giving young writers the training and discipline of excellence in succinct writing.

Anne Midgette said that criticism is a way of participating in a discussion about music, and that writing it is itself a creative act, as any good writing is. A critic can translate an unfamiliar work for an audience that otherwise might not know how to absorb it.

Heidi Waleson added that criticism chronicles what musical institutions do.

Alex Ross noted that this is particularly important with the recent flowering of new music concerts (especially in New York, where he works, but also elsewhere). Critics can give the audience knowledge of how music is made.

The critics also had advice for students. Anne Midgette encouraged them to seek out and publicize (without puffery) the new institutions and venues that are the most creative, because they often outstrip established ones in that respect. John Rockwell said that it's fun to discover someone new and great and make them known. Alex Ross pointed out that this isn't just the critic's self-promotion: it makes you constructive. John Rockwell cautioned that it's hard to shake a reputation once established, but Tim Page said that once you're past the stage where everything is either great or terrible, you should feel free to be enthusiastic (a point Alex Ross also endorsed). Anne Midgette also warned against inflexibility and never changing one's mind, to which Stephen Rubin added that the artists you review can change in style or ability.

And that was it, for this audience member. It's been informative.

Comments

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether the people critical of critics are the Pelleastrean/Genevieve Castle Room/Dan Sowern/some unknown number of pseudonyms, who has been haunting various blogs and mailing lists for quite a while and has....a thing...about music criticism.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

I think some people think "criticism" means "tearing apart."

[(Anonymous)]

Anne Midgette said:

"A critic can translate an unfamiliar work for an audience that otherwise might not know how to absorb it"

----

This is nonsense from Anne.

The anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss said it best: "Music is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable"

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

More bushwah. Every structural analysis (e.g. an explanation of how sonata form works) or description of a program is a translation of music to make it more intelligible to the audience. Disney's famous cartoon is a translation explaining what's going on in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

And don't forget that some music has words and an even more explicit verbal content.

Midgette (though I've met her, I don't presume a close enough acquaintance to call her by her first name) gave a specific example: a long song cycle by the Soviet composer Georgi Sviridov was performed without any program notes or previous remarks by the singer. The music was powerful, but the audience was bewildered: it was all in Russian, which the audience didn't know, and the meaning and essence of the work passed them by. A knowledgeable critic afterwards, or a critical discussion beforehand, could have clarified this.

I've had experiences of this kind more often than I can count. Blissfully coasting on the pleasant sounds is nice, but not a very rich way of experiencing classical music. A critic can sharpen your attention and understanding.

Levi-Strauss should stick to what he knows. From this remark, he has a very crude and incomplete understanding of what music is.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

And if the remarks had been on the order of Isaac Asimov's opinion of book reviewers, that would be a possible cause. But these were of a different order: not that critics are too hard on the poor performers (though I've seen that charge, too), but that they add nothing to the musical experience.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

sturgeonslawyer, the anonymous person to whom Kalimac is responding spends a lot of time posting such bullshit on music blogs. He believes or claims to believe that writing about music is worthless.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Oh.

I am reminded of Frank Zappa's comment that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Much though I admire Zappa as a guitarist and composer, he was just wrong here, and so is A. Nonny Mouse.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That remark - which has been attributed to a lot of people - was specifically called out at this conference.

There is a kernel of truth to it, though - that formulating and conveying your meaning in this other medium can be deucedly difficult.

[(Anonymous)]

Kalimac,

I've had experiences of this kind more often than I can count. Blissfully coasting on the pleasant sounds is nice, but not a very rich way of experiencing classical music. A critic can sharpen your attention and understanding.

Wait, what?

Who said anything about... "blissfully coasting on the pleasant sounds"?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"blissfully coasting on the pleasant sounds" = what happens if you listen, even with enjoyment, to music that you don't understand = the result of an untrained ear not having read anything about music because of believing nincompoops who think that language has nothing to say about music.

[ny bookfile (from livejournal.com)]

I think that 'understanding' here conflates a few concepts: the understanding of how a piece works, the understanding of the way a piece is put together, and the verbalization of that understanding.

Only the third of these requires any technical terminology, and the majority of this can be picked up by the enthusiastic and interested amateur.

The question of whether any background in music is "required" for fully understanding a given piece is an odd one. It's certainly not required for enjoyment (of any piece that I know of). I found that after I became able to better read music and gained an awareness of technical terminology and how this correlates with what is heard (that's the really important part), I was able to come to understand more music more quickly, and that in a way my listening became more focused and I could "hear" more (meaning I was able to process more at once), BUT (and here is where I disagree with kalimac, Lisa).... I am not sure that the same could not come to one who merely listens intently