Bill Pirkle, about critics:

>Would they represent themselves as experts who should be listened to? Has
>the world come to understand them as more than another literary genre.
>If one called a janitor a "custodial engineer" I'm sure he would not
>correct you and say, "No, I'm just a janitor"

That's the trap.  If a critic believes himself in his role of guru...Check
out the best critical pages that you have read and ask yourself what does
they have in common (I mean, those pages that you have most enjoyed, rather
than those that provided you only factual information, no matter how useful
was it).  Perhaps you will find in them a personal invitation to dialogue
with the author, or a writer saying many things that has nothing to do
apparently with music.  In fact, a true critic makes us believe that he
writes about music, but he writes actually about himself, among many other
things of the universe.  Another fact: it's generally believed that the
craft of criticism consist mainly of making axiological judgments.  Nothing
is more far from true than this.  "Good", "bad", "worst", "better", are
(or should be) secondary expressions at the vocabulary of a true critic.
Criticism comes from "krinein" =3D "to judge", but also "to interpret".  If
criticism is just a thumb down or up rather than a quest for meaning, then
criticism is nothing, and critics aren't but a parody of Nero.  If I don't
remember bad "Oneirokritikon" means "interpretation of dreams": Freud, De
Quincey and the old-testamentary Joseph were dream critics.  What I'm
looking for are their equivalents in music.

(By the way: Freud was a romantic writer, as everybody knows.  If anyone
has doubts, however, read Giovanni Papini's "Gog")

Pablo Massa
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