@Bryant — I have now become privy to the brilliance of wood and polyurethane. It’s my favourite sort of metaphor…a little bit random but apt. I referenced mac and cheese in a review this weekend but the rest of it was poorly constructed, so it didn’t go over that well.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DD133EF934A2575BC0A966958260&scp=3&sq=moscow+virtuosi&st=nyt

My sentence, “Well, the very first thing after that is that a genuine classical music critic never panders to proles or plays to the house,” is incomplete. That sentence should have read: “Well, the very first thing after that is that a genuine classical music critic never panders to proles or plays to the house, and is generally well-informed in all the arts.”

ACD

I take it you mean beyond the prerequisite of knowing more about music than even one’s most informed readers, right?

Right.

Well, the very first thing after that is that a genuine classical music critic never panders to proles or plays to the house. Beyond that, it’s a matter of gift — literary, philosophical, psychological, etc. To get an idea of the gifts required, read the best work of classical music critics such as (and in no special order) Ross, Holland, Rich, Bernheimer, Rothstein, and Porter, to name off the top of my head contemporary classical music critics still writing. Then there are the classic masters such as Shaw, Newman, Downes, and Thomson, not to mention old-time part-timers such as Berlioz and Wagner.

Well, you get the picture, I’m sure.

ACD

Of course, two more seconds spent reading the rest of the text would have revealed that it was not Mr Holland’s words you were lamenting but rather those of his critics.

It may please you, in some sort of karmic retribution way, to know that this post was carpet-spammed in the last few hours.

So, I’m curious. How does one qualify as a genuine music critic?

Sign of the times (pun intended).

ACD