WETA FM 90.9 Blog

The process of learning is a humbling affair. Every time our knowledge doubles about an issue dear to our hearts (or minds), we are reminded how little we knew in retrospect. And of how paltry the newly gained knowledge will seem again, once we learn more and re-double our knowledge. Concepts and relationships once out of grasp become ‘common knowledge’.

There is a danger that the uninformed curiosity of a past moment will seem like sheer ignorance from the new vantage point. We are all the better off if we remember that any current state of knowledge could well seem ignorant, too, just a few facts and epiphanies down the road.

For me, music is this field. Discoveries of the obscure as well as evidently obvious facts continue unabated and my ignorance of the subject matter appears to half every few years–and yet seems infinite. Writing about music means that pitfalls are lurking left and right. If I assume my current comprehension and expertise to be ‘common knowledge’, I ignore that ‘uninformed curiosity’ from which I continuously evolve and which the potential reader shares in various degrees: the writing becomes difficult or meaningless, drowning in jargon and references not shared. But assuming no or very little exposure to the topics at hand might patronize readers or lack that trace of challenge that makes a topic more involving.

Humility—in the sense of ‘knowing one’s level’ (Latin: humus = earth) rather than ‘meek’ or ‘modest’—is the key to useful writing. Confidence in one’s own combination of ignorance and knowledge will prevent from straining to impress the fellow critics. Without that confidence and the desire to shine among the fellow idiots savants, jargon inevitably rears its ugly head. This is why so many reviews strike as terribly erudite—few of them are—and so very useless, because they are essentially written to withstand the judicious assessment of fellow critics. Ineffective writing is made worse when learned language masks sheer opinion, straining to make reviews appears as criticism.

As criticism steadily declines in the public discourse about the arts, it is replaced by ‘reviewism’. This might be lamented, but it is a reality which offers positives as well—as long as the two are not confused or muddled. And as long as its subjectivity has at least pretensions of objectivity. So long as consumers know what they are offered, they can gain—though differently—as much or more from a good reviewer than from a mediocre critic. Writing about art becomes a form of infotainment, and the choice of writers can be as personal as that of one’s favorite comedian. Just as some prefer Carrot Top over Jon Stewart, others prefer Norman Lebrecht over Andrew Patner.

I might be biased in my defense of useful ‘reviewism’ since I do exactly that: spread opinions in (presumably) useful guise. I would never claim that this ‘democratization’ of commenting on art would be a gain if it came at the price of losing writers like Martin Bernheimer, Tim Page, or Alex Ross—to mention three critics that combine the best of both worlds in inimitable fashion, all in their individual ways. But beneath the few bona fide critics left, the cacophony of bloviators provides a fine opportunity to pick out any particular angle or style from or in which to read about music. There is the perpetually cranky commentator; there is the artist-as-reporter, countless snide opera diaries, the apostle of modernism and the messenger of chant, the Beethoven-only enthusiast, or the everything-but-Rossini pundit. Take your pick.

A historical aside: Unlike in music, where talk of “golden times” is more hazy nostalgia than reference to a time with actually superior sopranos, there was such a golden time in music criticism. Perhaps no critic gets maligned as much as Eduard Hanslick (a lawyer by training), in good part because he famously dumped on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (“evokes perhaps for the first time the gruesome idea that music can stink to the ear”) and because Wagner, who Hanslick marshaled as the antipode to Brahms, lampooned him as Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger. (Although Katharina Wagner has evocatively re-interpreted Beckmesser’s role.) These are easy ‘mistakes’ to pick on, and surely ideology clouded his estimates on occasion. But reading Hanslick’s essays and criticism in the Neue Freie Presse, where he and his successor, Julius Korngold, had the lower third (!) of the front page (!) and of as many successive pages as they needed (!), one comes away with humble amazement, not quotations for snickering critic-bashing. Meticulously prepared, with great understanding, discerning taste, and usually sure instinct, both critics dissected the field of contemporary music in a way both accessible and erudite.

And the artist-as-reporter back then was of a different category from today’s practitioner-pifflers, too: Hugo Wolf (because he was broke) and Robert Schumann (more in the role of publisher) dabbled successfully—if not always without prejudice—in the field of music criticism. Whether Hanslick, Korngold, or Schumann: these writers attained their credibility and authenticity from sheer knowledge and ability. To find 20^th century examples of experts-cum-critics so highly respected, one would have to look to Harold Schonberg and Charles Rosen. I would also include the classically trained Tim Page here. It shouldn’t be surprising if today’s flock of commentators hasn’t the same quality when readers are no longer willing to pay for quality journalism. (It’s hard to blame newspapers for not continuing what their readers are not appreciating enough to pay for. Although Rupert Murdoch’s announcement to move away from making web-content available for free may be the first important step toward a re-appreciation of quality journalism.)

In any case, the case of credibility lies differently with the bloggers that seemed to jump into the breach that newspapers left gaping. The strength of private blogs was, and to some degree remains, that private persons tell of their experiences, likes, and dislikes with and about a subject they feel passionately for. That passion and the narcissistic element of sharing every such experience combined with at least a modest talent for writing becomes compelling and believable because these experiences come at the investment of the writers own time and money. In short: the strength of recommendations via blogs rests (or rested) on the fact that average bloggers “put their money where the mouth is”.

The problem with non-institutional bloggers is their vulnerability to kickback-coverage because the (unpaid) writer, unlike the journalist who takes it for granted, feels grateful for every free-be and is buttered up just by the attention he or she is paid. A pair of press tickets is usually enough to flatter bloggers into servile gushing; the snarkiest commentator suddenly shills the virtues of a performance he or she might else have derided. For every review (i.e. tickets) granted, a positive preview (free press) is demanded. Even a modest CD will be given a write-up; its weakness will be underplayed, positives glorified. To be quoted in a press packet is bliss. And integrity, it turns out, cheaper than imagined.

PR departments who have discovered blogs as potential grapevine-marketing tools will, assuming the reader catches on, end up undermining the blogs’ very source of credibility.

Admittedly, blogs are not fundamentally different in that regard from the regular press; just a lot cheaper. To believe that a vineyard will get coverage in the lifestyle magazine of a paper without selling its product well below cost to the newspaper’s own, exclusive “Wine Club” is naïve. But at least a few newspapers and magazines still remain aloof when it comes to sizeable kickbacks for their journalists. Paid hotel bills, subsidized flights, and the like are out. With smaller journals, including those about classical music, the prize for a feature story is usually—explicitly or inexplicitly—a full page ad. And which unpaid amateur scribbler, delighted to have met his idol, will still write a critical review for a feature, the ad-revenue of which keeps his periodical alive?