Critical Thinking

October 26, 2011

"The Romantic notion of the autonomous transcendent artwork entailed a hierarchized, strictly enforced split between emancipated creators, beholden (in theory) to no one but the muse, and selfless curators, sworn to submission. The producers of timeless works are the gods, exulting in their liberation from the world of social (‘extramusical’) obligation and issuing peremptory commands. The recipients of the commands are the Nibelungs, bound scrupulously to carry out the masters’ intentions for the sake of their glory, their own lives pledged to a sterile humdrum of preservation and handing-on. That is the mythology of our concert life."

— Musicologist Richard Taruskin, in the introduction to his essay collection Text and Act, p. 10. This is a mere tidbit of his larger, damning criticism of the current state of musicology, and of the related performance-practice movement. Trust me, he’s just getting warmed up here. My second favorite quote comes from his response to Leo Treitler, who had published a criticism of one of Taruskin’s early essays. Treitler writes, “I don’t know whether Taruskin would make a principled defense of the differentiation,” between the level of accountability we should expect from a scholar versus that which we should expect from an historically-informed performer. As if to bring attention to, and thus undermine, Treitler’s pretentious nitpicking, Taruskin retorts how, “he could have called me up” (p. 24). The chutzpah!

11:18pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/Zw2powBAGKAO
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(Notes: 10)