Where would we be without Important Music Critics?

Robert Commanday agreeing with Anthony Tommasini's review of Julie Taymor's new production of the Magic Flute at the Met (even though Commanday hasn't actually seen or heard it himself):

The fact that "the audience gave [Taymor] a frenzied ovation" did not deter Tommasini from expressing his "perplexing disappointment." This is an important reason for having critics, informed observers stand apart from those who come all too ready to embrace entertainment, not seeking or prizing an engagement with the artistic creator.

Now I haven't seen this Zauberfloete either (though I would love to), so I can't comment on what Tommasini wrote. But I am most curious about Commanday's commentary on Tommasini's criticism: Is it not perplexing and disappointing that, as a primary facet of being an Important Music Critic, Commanday is willfully not interested in being engaged with those who are trying to create things that are artistic and original? You know, it's a funny thing, but I rather like being inspired by someone's creativity.

Alas, where would we be without Important Music Critics? Apparently we would be enjoying music and feeling engaged with art.  The horror, the horror.

Comments

[m.croche]

I generally agree with TSR, though I think you maybe need an extra step or two to get there.

Commanday, in a fit of misanthropic grouchiness, has seen fit to revive the hoary old Teutonic distinction between art and entertainment. Not that he actually defines either of them. Instead, he proceeds, like Adam in Eden, to declare one thing "art", another "entertainment."

One symptom of this: he's apparently incapable of finding art in what it is Julie Taymor does. I have to wonder whether he regards Donizetti as art or entertainment. If the former, how does he counter the arguments of many in the 19th and 20th centuries that would place Donizetti in the latter?

The thought that these two categories, even as ways of approaching a particular work, might not be mutually exclusive never occurs to him. He seems to assume, for example, that properly artistic appreciation of art requires the sobriety and concentration of one listening to a Victorian sermon. This, it seems to me, is an impoverished view of art.

The only person it does enrich, as TSR points out, is the music critic, who is granted license to declare what the "musical intent" of the composer is, to draw the line between "characterization" and "caricature." It pretty much fixes the critic as the arbiter of taste: be with me, or be with the hoi polloi.

This is a mode of criticism designed to make himself and those who agree with him feel cozy in snug superiority. I don't think this is productive.

(By the way, I think San Francisco Classical Voice would be better off if it gave up the preening editorials. The form forces critics to give in to their worst traits - to offer up opinions in lieu of careful analysis. Commanday's comments on the Met production of Zauberflote, a production he hasn't seen, are not an isolated instance. I know of a SFCV editorial writer who wrote about Adams' Nixon in China without ever having heard the work before, even on CD.)

[Dale Masterson]

Robert Commanday has been a local pain in the arse from Day One.
He always wanted to be a composer and could never manage that. He wanted to conduct choruses and failed at that even at the University of Calif, in Berkeley.
When is this fool just going to stop altogether?