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Commentary: Are these the best of times or the worst of times?

By John Terauds on August 16, 2013

(Pablo Helguera/NPR cartoon)
(Pablo Helguera/NPR cartoon)

Tomorrow marks my last scheduled post of the season before heading out to the Banff International String Quartet Competition and taking a few days’ personal time. So, before Musical Toronto turns into Musical Banff, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the value of critics in the virtual age.

Every time a newspaper or magazine dismisses a theatre, movie, book or music critic, a conversation arises about the value and meaning of criticism in a post-print world. That’s nothing new; the critic — and I mean this in the broadest possible sense, from front-stoop wag to Learning Annex lecturer — has been and will continue to be with us always.

We all need to both love and hate the neighbourhood know-it-all, whether the ‘hood is an opera house or elementary school bake sale.

What I think few commentators have effectively identified, though, is what, exactly makes the informed critic important.

I’d like the suggest that it is as a bulwark against the perils of an eternal present, where the 9:05 tweet supplants the 9:04 tweet and yesterday’s news releases are forgotten as today’s announcements crawl the Internet.

It is the specialist, the know-it-all, the critic, who can hopefully provide a continual reality check. This is someone who can place each new bit of news into some sort of context, not just repeat it for her or his readers or listeners or viewers.

As news organizations increasingly pare their staff — especially the older, more experienced (and more expensive) veterans — more and more press releases simply get rewritten and condensed as news every day. Not only is there neither time nor people to ask questions, there are fewer and fewer people around who can say, oh we’ve seen this before, or this is bullshit because ….

My biggest worry is that publicly accountable government is falling victim to such an eternal present, but I write about music, and so will stick to musical examples.

At the end of every season, the larger presenters produce a summary of how their season has gone. When the news is good, the media relations people provide context, saying that, for example, ticket sales were up 25 per cent compared to last year.

When the news is bad, there usually isn’t any past information provided. Instead, media people receive a notice that says, “The Company sold 185,000 tickets in 2012-13, representing 87 per cent attendance!”

This random bit of information is utterly meaningless unless one knows that this is 15 per cent less than 2011-12, which, in turn was 9 per cent less than 2010-11.

Is this because of a bad economy? Bad artistic decisions? Changing demographics? These are questions that are difficult for even the most experienced observer to answer.

Quality and style of musicmaking add the tricky element of aesthetic judgment to the contextual mix.

News and information are based in objectivity. Opinions on art are largely subjective, but I believe (self-servingly, of course) that it helps to have someone join the conversation who has been to 12 other performances of Beethoven’s Ninth, or who has studied the score or, ideally, has actually tried to make that music come to life.

Every new artist promoted by an agent or record label or concert presenter is going to be the best and most exciting one ever. Marketing has always been — and needs to be — thus.

Social media means that truth as well as deception spread with equal speed — and sometimes with little to discriminate between the two. Most of this propagation is harmless, incidental, ephemeral.

What keeps me up at night, though, is allowing myself to think that, if the easy, inconsequential lie can spread quickly, so can the truly malevolent kind.

But let’s get back to music.

Was Wagner the most influential opera composer of the 19th century? Are Mozart’s string quartets as fine as Haydn’s? Is Verdi’s Requiem the grandest setting of the funeral mass? Is opera in Toronto thriving or dying? Will the symphony orchestra as we know it still be around in 10 years?

Are these the best of times — or the worst of times?

Just asking.

John Terauds

 

 

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