Bill Pirkle ([log in to unmask]) 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?

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet...as some on the list are aware, I
*am* a music critic, although it's not my fulltime job.

I leave others to decide whether the following makes the world a better
place or not...Last April the combined Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra
and University of Victoria Orchestras performed Mahler 8 in Victoria.
All present agreed it was a special performance, although not technically
perfect of course.

Now, the reason I mention this is that the manager of the youth orchestra
told me that when the conductor suggested performing the work she had
serious misgivings.  However, while surfing the net she discovered my
Mahler recordings survey, in which I referred to a performance I attended
in London in 1992 by the Kent County Youth Orchestras and how moved I had
been by it.  This, she told me, was the spur she needed to agree to this
risky (and expensive) project.

I humbly suggest that had I not been the local critic and had a certain
track record with my assessments of performances she had also attended,
my opinion on the web would have been worth rather less.

I now withdraw, embarassed...

Deryk Barker
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