Eastman School of Music - Score Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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li..' r,,,, I l Music Critics Symposium December 8-12 ,r f X Q 1 L A 4 -.L W l I' -,ie ,inf-3 Q 4 i W qv.. 1. x . -,f-,1- .J 3 . IQ... J .1 ...va ' . R.: What can musical criticism accomplish for its readers? We are not as we are so often described, watchdogs of the public taste, guardians against error and backsliding from the true, the good, and the beautiful, at all events we are not merely that. More than a hundred years ago Charles Baudelaire put the The Art of the American Popular Singer Critics identify themselves with, support and even encourage the artists arrogant, self-indulgent attitudes. And they bear, as a professional group, a considerable degree of responsibility for the gulf that now separates art and society '.., tIn a criticl I would be looking for intelligence and literary talent rather than expertise. I would want com- mentary, rather than adjudication The good artist doesnt need an intermediary. Communication is his business - or should be. The critic's business is to comment upon and evaluate his achievements as a 3 5 l ' l , ' .. ' .iw .f Ii 1 '-I y-,-..-.x'R ' 'ng- . Q 1 A V ' g , ,. c iilli xc case, with the concision of genius, in exactly seven words. In speaking of his criticism, he said 'I aim to transform pleasure into recognitionf This is an ideal toward which we all can af- ford to strive. Alfred Frankenstein - San Francisco Chronicle - Q... 1 'qi 5 C ' 2 communicator . . . In the assessment of new music particularly, the professional critic has tended to side with the composer as a fellow professional against the hostile or indifferent lay listener . . . As criticism, his work has paid a priC9 in loss of perspective and detachment for what it has gained in expertise . . . I believe that the specialist critic, whether amateur or professional, tends to become an unrepresentative member of the audience. I-Ie hears too much. I-Ie l4noWS too much. And he becomes, inevitably, too pOW2ffUl and too influential . , Henry Pleasants - International Herald Tribune ,qhe bell Fof 'I listen 'r0Und or llenl Of tho f1And ab' erforl Whatet l mal tance' W to 0119 P caSC to leSSl0nal hl ,The C1'l hag to CXPI however ll' and Person The CU iablishmen rhrowS OU' ment - tllii B 'x

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S 3 x i f----, E HY Consciousness lfbidz he tabulates l The performance err the most mun- ith the inevitabili- theri boring, asl l's eling Mr. Hend 'nd slip' felt my mi rational tl1oughlS htlie g out tlrroug anesthesia. l WJS ll-loved friendil ice, in whiCl1llme Melissa 50l'l

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I ' - i iii H Words. In rm Pleasure 'e all can af- :o Chronicle P.. rticul the C0mP or indifferent as paid al price r what lf has OSC! ui ether amalei e rePre59ntauV n Lx HE know? oweffu too P Tribune ,The better critics have grown up in music and that is of ' the utmost im por- tance, For it is in childhood that musical reflexes set in and th aleni of those they are criticizing. at includes the abili- ,,And above all, the better critics from childhood have been intensel ' - Y COrnparin one performance against another, one philosophy of performance - 8 - agalnst another Whatever his background or beliefs, a critic must mak e ' ' a convrcting enough case to make the reader think, and to show enough expertise to Conv. h IHCE t E3 pfg- fessional he is not bluffing . . . ,fl-he critic stands between the creator tor the performersj and th ' has to explain to the public what is going on. But his prime responsibifublrc. He however he conceives art, and that involves standards identificationl lilhls tio art' ' W1 t e art, and personal integrity . . . ,fThe critic who constantly raises issues and poses questions tak tablishment tboth the old and the new Establishmentj, pokes fuln ates Onqihe ES- throws out ideas, stiumlates his readers, writes well enough to be readsacrtt-L cows, ment - this kind of critic is doing all that can be expected of him, W1 enloy- Harold Schonberg - New York Times ' 11 as to perform The b tt ' ' ty to listen as we . e er critics all have a conservat Or b ck L11V l ground or the equivalent, and F11 general musical culture at the very l t thy a - eas e eq ' - will 31 The Sound and the Fury: A Critic Paces the Seventies The real trouble at Eastman - and I suspect at a number of schools like it - is that the school is lacking in people qualified to tell the kids what music is like today, or where it may be going tomorrow. Rich 'sensed something very stultifying, very wrong about the place,' and compared the feeling to those 'rustlings' he's heard from other US. music conservatories - Juilliard, Curtis, Peabody and New England. Rich praised the faculty t ex- traordinary technicians on musical instruments who are also qualified to teach their craft J, and damn- ed its new music t dry aca- demicism that would wither away immediately, divorced from its surroundings J. Alan Rich - New York magazine