MUSIC CRITICISM
Fall 2011
Greg Sandow
Google Voice phone number (finds me almost anywhere): 646
484-8163
you can text me there, too
read my blog on the future of
classical music
read my
in-progress online book on the future of classical music
read today’s New York Times music reviews
read
my wife’s reviews and blog in the Washington
Post
Classwork and assignments
This schedule might change, depending on how long some of our
discussions take. Assignments might change, too. You’ll find links here to all
reading assignments, and also to the optional listening, which (like the
reading) you’ll be able to do online. I’ll e-mail all updates, including links
to any assignments that change.
All assignments should be done by the date they’re listed under. We’ll
be discussing them in class.
Introduction
to this course. What do we think about music criticism and music critics? (class discussion)
September 21
More
discussion of music criticism. How critics do their work.
September 28
Classical reviews, from the Wall
Street Journal:
You’ll see that I added a long postlude
when I put this review on the web. You don’t have to read this extra part
unless you want to.
One pop review, from the late ‘80s,
when I was chief pop music critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner:
“Vintage Talent’s Pop Wine: Rocking Chair’s Got ‘Re, James
B” (about Aretha Franklin)
One of my reviews from the early ‘80s,
when I was a columnist for the Village Voice, specializing in new music:
October 5
Ways to write
about music
Jack Kerouac goes wild about jazz in his novel On the Road (the Beat Generation
classic from the 1950s)
Two music reviews by Tom Johnson, my
predecessor as new music columnist at the Village Voice:
optional listening: Charles Ives’ The
Unanswered Question, which Tom writes about in this review
Rock critic and literary figure Greil Marcus goes into the heart of
an early Van Morrison song, “Mystic Eyes.” (The song comes from the first
album of Morrison’s first band, Them. Greil’s take on it comes from his book, When That Rough
God Goes Riding, about Van Morrison)
Optional listening:
October 12
George Bernard
Shaw’s music reviews (written in London in the 1890s)
Reading assignment. Please compare these two reviews. How
are they different? How are they similar?
Anthony Tommasini, “A Tale of Sex and Disdain in
Wharton’s Berkshires” (from the New York Times, September 2, 1999)
October 19
no class -- Greg in San Antonio, adopting a baby
October 26
More on Shaw
Reading assignment
Five Shaw reviews:
“Municipal Bands
and Opera Tricks” (excerpt)
“A Sentimental Voluptuary” (an attack on Brahms)
November 2
Virgil
Thomson’s music reviews (written for the New York Herald-Tribune in the
1940s and ‘50s)
two reviews of a Jascha Heifetz concert
in 1940, written by Thomson and by Olin Downes of the New York Times. Please compare them. How are they different?
Two more Thomson reviews:
“Schuman’s Undertow”
(about William Schuman)
“Gloomy Masterpiece” (about Berg’s Violin Concerto)
read my outline of how to write a music review.
Discussion of how to write a music
review
November 9
First paper
due. Please write a two-page review of some music I’ll put online.
Please e-mail this and all other assignments to
me. I don’t happily accept late assignments. If you’re going to be late with
your work, you absolutely must let me know in advance, and arrange another due
date
More on Thomson
Four Thomson reviews, of four pianists. I think the reviews are
very different from each other. But I think they also have some things in
common. What’s your view?
“Master of Distortion
and Exaggeration” (about Vladimir Horowitz)
“Equalized Expressivity”
(about Artur Schnabel)
“Dramatizing the
Structure” (about Clifford Curzon)
November 16
Rock criticism
No assignment.
We’ll listen to Elvis’s very first record, and find ways to talk about it.
November 23 no class; Thanksgiving week
November 30
Rock criticism
Reading assignment
From Nick Hornby’s Songbook:
“Nelly Furtado:
‘I’m Like a Bird’”
optional: listen to the song
From The Rolling Stone
Illustrated History of Rock & Roll:
Ellen Willis, “Janis Joplin”
optional listening:
three Janis Joplin songs:
“Ball and Chain” (live)
December 7
Second paper due. Please write two or three pages about a
concert you’ve gone to.
Jazz criticism
Reading assignment
Stanley Crouch:
an essay on
Charlie Parker (an excerpt from Crouch’s review of
Bird, the Clint Eastwood film about Parker)
optional listening: Charlie Parker, “Koko”
December 14
Final discussion. Take-home exam due.
December 21 – no class; many of us will be gone for the holidays