The Emotional, Aesthetic and Academic Dilemma of the Music Critic
Some of you who possibly read what I write, may wonder why my music criticism has not covered the remarkable Warsaw Easter Beethoven Festival and other recent notable concerts in Poland and elsewhere. I am not a Professor of Music at an eminent international institution or a graduate musicologist but am an author and college lecturer in cultural education who seriously studied music, the piano and harpsichord in London for many years. However, I must admit to having almost completely lost confidence in the usefulness of my perhaps all too personal assessment of music recitals and concerts. Many concerts, competitions and recitals can be watched online today and listeners can come to their own conclusions concerning interpretation and performance. After all it is the composer, the composition and its historical and cultural context that should predominate in one's considerations and conclusions. In the modern world, beset as it presently is with the horrors of survival on every fr