Steve writes:

>Norman Lebrecht raised the issue of "trusting" critics as a kind of
>Consumer Reports for recordings and performances and asked which ones are
>trusted most and least.
>
>I've almost never looked at a single critic for that reason, so the issue
>of trust doesn't come up at all for me.  I read critics for other reasons
>- insight into the music or performer, the pleasures of good argumentation,
>interest in criticism as a genre.  As far as getting me to plunk down my
>money, either a critic convinces me to take a chance or not or a consensus
>does, but it's never the same critic or the same consensus.  I never read a
>single critic because he's right or wrong, but because he's interesting.

I agree completely with Steve.  And I would add that music criticism is
useful to me not when it is about what is "correct" or "incorrect," "right"
or "wrong," or "good" or "bad" in a performance, but when it tells me about
what is new or different in an interpretation, and perhaps about how an
interpretation provides a new way of hearing a piece.

John Grant
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/42/john_lewis_grant.html