MUSIC CRITICISM

Fall 2010

Greg Sandow

go to my website (under construction)

read my blog on the future of classical music

read my in-progress online book on the future of classical music

read the course overview

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.

September 15

Introduction to this course. What do we think about music criticism and music critics? (class discussion)

September 22

More discussion of music criticism. How critics do their work.

Reading assignment

Some of my own reviews (so you’ll know what kind of critic your teacher has been)

Classical reviews, from the Wall Street Journal:

“Enigmatic Debut”

“Putting the Music First”

“When the Solid Dissolves”

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.

“Conduct(or) Unbecoming the Boston Symphony”

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:

“Cage Speaks Louder When the Street Gets Noisy”

September 29

Ways to write about music

Reading assignment

Some unusual music writing:

E.M. Forster writes about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in his 1910 novel Howard’s End

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 at the Village Voice:

“Charles Ives in Brooklyn”

optional listening: Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, which Tom writes about in this review

“Yoko Ono’s Snow”

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 new book, When That Rough God Goes Riding, about Van Morrison)

Optional listening:

“Mystic Eyes”

October 6

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?

Shaw, “The Most Utter Failure Ever Achieved”

Anthony Tommasini, “A Tale of Sex and Disdain in Wharton’s Berkshires” (review from the New York Times, September 2, 1999)

October 13 no class

I’ll be in Europe, giving a keynote speech at a meeting of Dutch classical music professionals

October 20

Reading assignment

Three Shaw reviews:

“Municipal Bands and Opera Tricks” (excerpt)

“Bayreuth’s Indifference to Beauty”

“Herr Mottl’s Insight”

October 27

Reading assignment

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?

read my outline of how to write a music review.

Discussion of how to write a music review

November 10

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