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

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'INQWSPQPH Music Reviewer: Critic or Reporter? , . . . The day of the amateur music cr1t1C 15 over. , , t S The music critic of today 15 JUS a much a professional musician aS the composer, the performer, the muslcolo' gist and the teacher. In talking to a dozen or so of the stu- dents, I discovered that not a single Q36 had either seen or talked to a muS1C Cf1f1C before the symposium. Irving Lowens - Washington DC. Evening Star gmt? One Eastman student observed: I got the impression you were all saying 'if you want to be a good critic, you have to be Just like me', adding somewhat hesi- idnflv. though I don't think you all fupport that position equally convinc- mslv. I Offered one student Pleasant's ClUlP about the convocation of tenors lf0mPff1fir1g the symposium to a convoca- tion of tenorsl. She grinned, Yeah, and YOU want to be Franco Corelli. Michael Steinberg - Boston Globe Momus, Masscult and the Kitchen Sink I had a graduating senior, realistically assess his chance of employment as 'slim, if not non-existent' All of the in- stitutions we are involved with are a part of these problems, however we choose to disregard them. As Mr. Stuckenschmidt says, we should not let them influence our reviews. But neither should we go thru our professional lives with our heads in the sand. The crises today are reflections of the accelerating general transformation of our musical lives, and it is high time all of us realized it. Thomas Willis - Chicago Tribune Influf Criticism Should point of ' any ideo destructit A mil vincial G relations for their the vangi a paradoa Strar naively fr ly proves the Com! and expe form Soi Classlessi He w Sate anc beautiful Relat from Wh Sfruction this mod fight to llllman I S accord and large He o Sies betv Purely , Hmost al llftelll in Slmllllay mpts in QI music iiberateh te H

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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

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isscult and the Kitrhtr U ating senior, realistitalli ance ot employment as in-existent. All of their re involved with areapazt rms. however we thooset i. As Mr. Stuckensehrif- iid not let them influeige But neither shoulclweg :tessional lives with it sand. The crises today ax if the accelerating geifr in of our musiealliieszf all ot us realizeclitf' as wiurs - chreaeelll'-' s f i'4 , 'fits Influence of Political Ideology in Modern Criticism Should music be molded to fit the sociological point of view of the critic, or should it be free of any ideology which might lead to its ultimate destruction? A militant modernism is blossoming in pro- vincial Germany. It is promoted by huge public relations organizations and it praises novelties for their own sake. The managers have turned the vanguard into a mass march and have created a paradoxical conformism of the non-conformists . . . Strangely enough, the ideological critics quite naively follow this novelty cult. Altho reality dai- ly proves the contrary, they seriously believe in the compatability of individual artistic visions and experimental forms with the needs of a uni- form Socialist society and its Utopian goal of classlessness. He who wields political power tends to subju- gate and make subservient those useless and beautiful things which we classify as culture. Relating an art phenomenon to the society from which it emerged will indeed lead to the de- struction of truly artistic criteria. Whence does this modern manner of viewing culture derive its fight to measure the greatest creation of the human mind, free and totally independent music - according to the mental slant of an anonymous and largely accidental community. . He concluded with three ideas: That analo- S19S between social and musical phenomena are purely accidental and not conclusive , that lmostuartistic and musical phenomena are abso- lftely Independent of, and often in opposition to Simultaneous social conditions, and that at- tempts to find sociological explanations for high- if-Lmusical forms are either self-deceiving or de- l erately misleading. Hans H. Stuckenschmidt - scholar, writer, and music critic from Berlin