Bill Pirkle wrote:

>Could someone enlighten me as to what public service music critics perform.
>How is life better with them here? What kind of music world would it be if
>there were no music critics? Are music critics certified or accredited?
>Should they be taken seriously or is it just another amusement item in the
>paper like the cartoons and the horoscope.  Is there any politics involved?
>
>Seriously, I want to know - how would the music world be different if there
>were none.

indeed!  but first we must, as always when confronted with any
question, go back to the turn of the twentieth century.  ie - I know of
ONE exact impact a critic took on a composer, and that was Cesar Cui -
part of the Russian Five, but never made any impact in the compositional
scheme-of-things for himself.  Cui completely HAMMERED Rachmaninov's First
Symphony and thereafter Rach went into some bout of depression, eventually
coming out of it to succeed with his second piano concerto.  Of course,
this is in general a 'one-off' thing, and it is certainly 'indirect'
impact, but composers DO listen to critics.  Here we have the indication of
what exactly a critic is for: I'd say in so many words: 'to represent the
public opinion'.  The critics of which I speak are, of course, 'accredited'
and 'certified'.  There *are* university majors for music criticism - and
they come under Music Degrees ... ie A music diploma majoring in Music
Criticism.  Personally Bill I think you are tad unfair on the existance of
such an occupation, citing some hackneyed fact like 'oh they are unknowing
biggots who despise everything and most of all, the talent of the composer
... why can I not have such talent'.  This is an unfair stereotype.  Now
of course, there are many critics out there who simply review cds and say
nothing more, I am sure they are employed in newspapers around the globe
or *whatever* ... but criticism is in any case an important part of any
artistic movement.  Indeed, if a listener at a concert disagrees with a
criticism made, that is fine ... more power to each!  The point is, *not
all people in the local community attend the concert*, and in general I
would say in this the critic plays a role: to inform the 'local community'
what a performance was like and whether or not further investigation on
behalf he who reads the review, further investigation into the performers
criticised, should be taken.  Maybe, then, it is also in the name of the
critic.  Why ... if it is a nobody and he is criticising the performance of
a well-known performer as boring or dry or whatever euphemistic phrase for
'crap' they can conjure, then you can do one of two things: a) ignore the
criticism and continue to worship the performer, b) take the criticism as
a valued judgement.  For the first case, I would say that that is slightly
unfair for the critic.  Brilliant performers can have their off-nights too,
and if that is the case, I should like to hear about it!  An example to
illustrate:

John Williams came to town about a month ago.  One of the pieces he played
was Cordoba.  He made a mistake.  I heard it myself.  The poor reviewer
in the West Australian wrote of that piece nothing but 'Williams played
cordoba, a piece arranged for piano in a very difficult manner'.  No
comment on how it was played or the muck-up.  I would have to say that this
is quite a predicament for the critic, when such a name as people know
around the world performs in WA, the critic cannot *criticise* him because
he is so *good*.  No!  People can have none of that, criticising the *god
of guitar*!  Williams will still be the god despite one stupid mistake.

All that said and done, the performer performs the work to the best of
his abilities and by his own interpretation, regardless of what any critic
would say to the interpretation.  A composer indeed would never have a
critic in mind when composing.  How ridiculous.  In any case, you seem
to have some sort of bias against critics due to lack of information or
whatever - that's fine.  I think it's unfair though.  Critics are classical
music listeners too - why how many are on this list? I'd say every person
on this list is a critic; half of the messages on this list are involved
one way or another with criticism: what cds should I buy? What performer
should I 'obtain' for so-and-so work.  There seems to be a new 'column' on
this list where someone - whose name I do not know - spreads the word about
classical performers on mp3.com.  That is in one way criticism: spreading
the word of such-and-such performance - although it is not criticism in the
strict sense; I've never read these messages, only the headers in the
digest version of this list.  One final point: at a public concert, I am
sure of it, the critic WILL generally take into account the applause at the
end of the concert, or each piece, and judge this as whether or not the
'majority' liked, approved, of the performance or not.  Anyway, finished
now!

PS if ever you wrote a piece and performed it to their friends, if they
have any knowledge about music, I'd say they would enjoy critiquing.

-MA Knezevic
http://mpeg3c.org