
This is a brave thing for these critics to do. For some reason, many people expect music critics to be entirely lacking in the human capacity for personal taste. Rather, we’re supposed to be walking, talking, music-appreciation textbooks, utterly orthodox in our views and spewing truisms about enduring greatness and organic unity. And if a critic dares to speak unkindly of an “acknowledged masterpiece,” then that critic is clearly an idiot. This makes some critics reluctant to voice their contrarian opinions – which then acquire the status of professional “dirty secrets.”
It’s no great tragedy that “only” 209 Bach cantatas have survived to the present day.
Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge is a much finer work than it sounds.
Much of Richard Strauss’s music makes me feel like I’m being force-fed rich Viennese pastries ad nauseum.
After Symphony of Psalms (composed in 1930), it was all downhill for Stravinsky.
Any questions?
© Colin Eatock 2011