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Mon, 9 Oct 2000 19:54:57 -0500 |
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Bill Pirkle asked:
>...would the critiques of the composer community be vastly different
>from the critiques of the music critic community over a large sampling
>or original music? Do composers listen for and hear different things in
>a composition?
After a good many years listening (as a composer), and c. 8 years teaching
a course component on the history and current practice of music journalism
on both sides of the Atlantic for the grad. composers at my school, my
considered opinion is yes, composers and critics may evaluate what they
hear with differing weights, and may in fact look for different things
within the same composition.
Among the sources in my course are readings from Oscar Thompson's
_Practical Musical Criticism_; Calvocoressi's _The Principles and Methods
of Music Criticism_; Virgil Thomson's _The Art of Judging Music_ ; and
Leonard Meyer's _Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations_.
While the 1980 Grove's defines Criticism roughly as "the translation and
grading of an aesthetic experience by means of intellectual analysis and
imaginative inquiry", Virgil Thomson manages to balance both a composer's
and critic's perspectives in his "prescription" for appropriate
discriminations:
"The cardinal distinctions in music are three:
(1) design vs. execution, or the piece itself as distinct from its
presentation;
(2) the expressive power of a work as distinguished from its formal
musical interest; and
(3) a convincing emotional effect vs. a meretricious one."
PS to Steve Schwartz: Oscar Thompson [music critic for the New York
Evening Post and associate editor of Musical America] noted in 1934 "The
critic is not a super-teacher; not for him to tell the artist how to
overcome faults".
Judith L. Zaimont
Professor of Composition
University of Minnesota - School of Music
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