Critics, particularly fine arts critics, are an endangered species.
Most newspapers and legacy outlets have cut critical coverage, particularly fine arts coverage, to the bone or amputated it entirely. Gone are the days when most listeners valued reviewers enough to base ticket-buying decisions on their opinions. If you want to see a new show or hear a controversial new song, you can typically stream it and form your own opinion.
Moreover, too much candor, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to irritate artists, I’ve found.
This is the age of the aggregate review, where sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic reign supreme. You’re more likely to buy something with 10,000 positive Amazon reviews than 200, right? The more streams a song has on Spotify, the more likely people are to try it for themselves.
In classical music, people tend to prefer to listen to what they already know they like, both at home and at concerts. Their minds are often already made up — most every Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert receives a standing ovation.
Is there still a place for “expert” criticism in media, then?
Popularity vs. quality
It’s human nature to associate commercial viability with excellence, even though most of us know that this isn’t always the case.
Symphonies don’t sell tickets like any of today’s pop acts. But art is subjective — popularity is not the same thing as quality, though they’re not mutually exclusive, of course. Classical organizations’ performances matter a great deal to a small number of people who remain willing to subsidize them. (Ironically, my position, like most of the organizations I write about, is also supported by philanthropic funding.)
The question of whether there’s any universal standard of quality and where a performance measures against that standard is where a critic steps in.
But alas, it’s not as simple as it sounds. Music education has dwindled to the point that there is a lack of vocabulary and familiarity about the fundamentals of music. Even the classical fans that still attend concerts can’t always comfortably articulate why they like a Beethoven symphony, for example, even though they’ll spend hundreds of dollars on a ticket to hear the fifth symphony or a Puccini opera for the dozenth time.
This is nothing to look down on or scoff at. Pity the snob that does so.
For many people, even the smallest window into the humanity and formal scaffolding behind music can enhance a concert-going experience, much like learning about a director’s background and filming process can help augment one’s appreciation for a film.
Good criticism can provide that context — historical or theoretical or even economic — and some vocabulary for discussing musical taste. It can help demystify some of the mechanics of the art form, ideally in language that remains approachable to the novice or new initiate.
Unpopular opinions
Some reviewers today see it as their mission to provide such context and to support artists by providing positive feedback only. They are hesitant to engage critically with performances, perhaps out of an appreciation for the symbiosis between artist and critic.
This may be helpful for writing grant proposals and marketing blurbs, but isn’t as useful to the artists or the public in the long run.
Plus, a rave isn’t interesting in the slightest if it doesn’t feel deserved.
My job is to give readers who may or may not have any musical knowledge an honest, qualitative assessment and a little analysis of its value. Finding a tone that balances general interest with artistically nuanced analysis is, admittedly, a tough needle to thread — but when we do, there is still a readership. I see how many people read digital reviews and I hear from them constantly by email.
I also hear from artists, often as not when they tell me that they don’t actually read criticism.
That’s OK. We’re not writing for them, really.
Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1634; Twitter @Reynolds_PG. His work at the Post-Gazette is supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Getty Foundation and Rubin Institute.
First Published: March 16, 2023, 10:00 a.m.
Updated: March 16, 2023, 6:34 p.m.
