Steve Schwartz writes:

>In short, if the editor knows little about music or what constitutes good
>music criticism, it's extremely unlikely that the music criticism will
>be strong in that department.  Porter was an exception, as was Winthrop
>Sargent.  It's going to take the magazine a while to find someone that
>good.

Andrew Porter is tops, of course. But he reads quite differently nowadays
in the Times Literary Supplement from the way he did in the New Yorker.
He is a superb musicological reviewer in the TLS; in the New Yorker he
was more readable, more facile, less yeasty. I'm guessing that his copy
underwent some top editing at the New Yorker--plus suggestions for
recasting, restructuring, adding, cutting etc from the editor assigned
to handle him.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]