Page 267 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2024. Glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes ▪︎ Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 7
P. 267
what is happening to music criticism?
I believe that the value judgement is an essential component of criticism
or, to put it another way, writing about music without a clear value judge-
ment is not and cannot be criticism. The disappearance of critical writing
is a generalised phenomenon. To return once again to the article on thea-
tre criticism in Slovenia, its author found that despite the clear definition of
theatre criticism in the Gledališki terminološki slovar (“Dictionary of theat-
rical terms”), where criticism is defined as “a specialised piece of writing that
reports on and evaluates performances in the media,”21 there was no trace of
evaluation in the vast majority of examples of criticism he looked at. The
only hint of a value judgment came via yet another product of pop culture
– the number of stars (1 to 5) which the critic, at the editors’ request, was re-
quired to publish alongside each individual review. Without these stars, in
the majority of cases it would be difficult for the reader to establish wheth-
er the critic’s opinion was positive or negative. The author of the article
therefore expressed the principle of Slovene theatre criticism by means of a
mathematical formula: “Some bullshit about the performance + stars = the-
atre criticism.”
In the field of music criticism, the situation in Slovenia has not yet be-
come so desperate, at least as regards evaluation, although even here there
are signs of development in the direction summed up by jazz critic Ted Gi-
oia in his article “Music criticism has degenerated into lifestyle reporting,”22
where he says: “The disappearance of critical judgment from music coverage
can be seen across the full spectrum of modern media.”23 We may conclude
from all of this that critics themselves are, at least indirectly, contributing
to the disappearance of criticism.
The importance of art criticism
I am certainly not the only person who thinks that arts criticism is impor-
tant. Its importance is apparent at several levels: in relation to the public,
in relation to artists and, last but not least, in relation to the general life of
society.
It is a fact that today we live in an information rubbish dump. We are
swamped by an immeasurable quantity of information of every type, rang-
21 Rotovnik, “‘Kr neki’ o uprizoritvi + zvezdice = gledališka kritika.”
22 Ted Gioa, “Music criticism has degenerated into lifestyle reporting,” The Daily Beast,
March 18, 2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/music-criticism-has-degenerat-
ed-into-lifestyle-reporting.
23 Ibid.
267
I believe that the value judgement is an essential component of criticism
or, to put it another way, writing about music without a clear value judge-
ment is not and cannot be criticism. The disappearance of critical writing
is a generalised phenomenon. To return once again to the article on thea-
tre criticism in Slovenia, its author found that despite the clear definition of
theatre criticism in the Gledališki terminološki slovar (“Dictionary of theat-
rical terms”), where criticism is defined as “a specialised piece of writing that
reports on and evaluates performances in the media,”21 there was no trace of
evaluation in the vast majority of examples of criticism he looked at. The
only hint of a value judgment came via yet another product of pop culture
– the number of stars (1 to 5) which the critic, at the editors’ request, was re-
quired to publish alongside each individual review. Without these stars, in
the majority of cases it would be difficult for the reader to establish wheth-
er the critic’s opinion was positive or negative. The author of the article
therefore expressed the principle of Slovene theatre criticism by means of a
mathematical formula: “Some bullshit about the performance + stars = the-
atre criticism.”
In the field of music criticism, the situation in Slovenia has not yet be-
come so desperate, at least as regards evaluation, although even here there
are signs of development in the direction summed up by jazz critic Ted Gi-
oia in his article “Music criticism has degenerated into lifestyle reporting,”22
where he says: “The disappearance of critical judgment from music coverage
can be seen across the full spectrum of modern media.”23 We may conclude
from all of this that critics themselves are, at least indirectly, contributing
to the disappearance of criticism.
The importance of art criticism
I am certainly not the only person who thinks that arts criticism is impor-
tant. Its importance is apparent at several levels: in relation to the public,
in relation to artists and, last but not least, in relation to the general life of
society.
It is a fact that today we live in an information rubbish dump. We are
swamped by an immeasurable quantity of information of every type, rang-
21 Rotovnik, “‘Kr neki’ o uprizoritvi + zvezdice = gledališka kritika.”
22 Ted Gioa, “Music criticism has degenerated into lifestyle reporting,” The Daily Beast,
March 18, 2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/music-criticism-has-degenerat-
ed-into-lifestyle-reporting.
23 Ibid.
267
