Modern Music Criticism

Sator Arepo found a particularly horrible Bernard Holland article on how much he doesn't like modernist music in the Times. He proceeds to tear it apart.

One sentence really sums up the problem critics have with modern music:

You wish it was 1774 and you're at the new Haydn symphony.

Yep, that's about right. So-called classical music critics are so beholden to the canon that they cannot handle innovation at all. Holland does in fact wish it was 1774 and he was at the new Haydn symphony. He probably dreams about it at night, in between the nightmares he has of Elliott Carter and George Crumb.

Rather than provide intelligent criticism of modernist music, Holland and others dismiss it outright as unlistenable, i.e., completely unchallenging and exactly what they heard their whole lives.

Critics like Holland remind me of Bad Company fans. What?!!???!! Am I comparing Mozart to Paul Rodgers? No. While Mozart only wishes in his grave that he could write "Feel Like Makin' Love," I'm not denying the greatness of most canonized figures. But like classic rock fans who listen to the radio hoping to hear "Hotel California" for 4000th time, too many members of the classical music institutions just want to hear the same thing over and over again. Interpreted by different people, it is true, but ultimately they want no challenges.

Of course, one can legitimately criticize much modernist music. It is often an investment. It's one that I usually find worth making, though when we get to pieces like Morton Feldman's "For John Cage" which only goes on for around 80 minutes (literally), I begin to get impatient. But to dismiss it outright because it makes you think and work a little bit is absurd. However, such absurdity never stopped the Times from hiring writers.