Steven Schwartz:

>the amount of insight or the justness of observation is probably a better
>measure.  If enough writers write about a composer with the same level
>of insight, we probably have something like a critical consensus.  But
>who's the tribunal this goes before and why does anyone attach major
>importance to what a bunch of individual writers thinkabout this or that
>composer? Surely what matters to you is what you yourself think.

Fortunately we don't have the kinds of musical tribunals that Shostakovich
had to grovel before, except maybe in China, but I don't know enough about
that to say.  So we are our own tribunals, as you imply.  Before passing
judgment, though, it is well to call some witnesses, and not just issue a
preremptory bench verdict, as you urged to Don Satz, in another thread.  As
you also suggest, here, the credibility of the witnesses should depend on
their justness of observation and the quality of insight.  And it is of
course what they say, not who they are, or how many they are, that really
matters.

Jim