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

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14 The Washington Post Critic claimed that those who studied and went on to teach com- position at Eastman usually fol- lowed what emerged as the party line. Their music could almost invariably be described as well- made, conservative, solid in de- sign, but without much in the way of innovation in melodici harmonic or rhythmic thinking. Paul Hume - Washington Post

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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

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fha- hf et-my f- g.,,.M fQwT1J -. .r...w,-erase A f fl . 3 Tiff: 4.-4.1 ff -1 11 f .snuff K 1 fjj,',2iLPC 1 .av-sfrpf pr .. J--'-'4' A -I ifb-1 4 xi?!'Ev4Ar1gPff ' 'ffilf 1 TW. Y P , iff J Th ' 4' '-f. .45 6 ltQQ'A ' l' ,Q it fi -nz wt 5.,,...-f fi-1F:N . T- Lo ' ' 'Q Y' A Music Critic In the Age of fy N.,f -i.. 41 Aquarius Like every creative or interpretative artist, the critic has to earn his audience and retain it. He must castigate the pasti- cheur, regret the incompetent, respect and understand the past, but live entirely in the present. What the future will think of his work is totally irrelevant. He is writing not for posterity but for now ... Life will be less rich if the age of Aquarius deprives its inhabitants of the joys of backwards time-traveling and of think- ing about music as well as being mas- saged by it. William Mann - London Times Opera Criticism in America: Prac- tice, Problems and Abuses It fthe Symposiumj was a rather traumatic experience. Nevertheless, critics do make sensi- ble judgements more often than their victims and historians are willing to con- cede. The problem, of course, involves human nature rather than art. People like to remember disasters, but they take the positive - if it happens to coincide with their own assessments -for granted. If we had a choice in the matter, it would be simple: do we want to be re- membered for being wrong, or forgotten for being right? Luckily, there is no clear- cut right or wrong when it comes to subjective evaluation. And, by its very nature, criticism must be subjective. Martin Bernheimer - Los Angeles Times