PAGANINI AS MUSIC CRITIC

Abstract

W HEN interviewed on the radio by Claude Rostand in 1952, Darius Milhaud expressed himself on, among other things, music criticism and not exactly enthusiastically, either. In one respect, however, he was willing to make an exception: It is often quite interesting to get to know the tastes of certain creative individuals . . . the ideas, even erroneous, of certain men of genius or even of great talent, such as Goethe, Schumann, Wagner, Sainte-Beuve, and Michelet, when they wish to make a critical remark.' In fact, great musicians' opinions of their contemporaries in music are among the most interesting lines that we find in their letters, memoirs, essays, sketches, etc. Not only those who won recognition as music critics professionally, like Berlioz, Liszt, Schumann, or Wagner, but others yield more or less abundant opinions of this sort, which from one point of view may pass as critical observations and from another are characteristic of their author and at the same time permit us to recognize and understand better his own artistic assumptions and opinions. The more remarkable the personality of the one criticizing and of the one being criticized, the more interesting and notable becomes the criticism. One need not, of course, always agree with Berlioz or Schumann in his conclusions -of which sofne are notoriously more odd than apt and Authoritative yet the significance of such authentic opinions is basic, and it is always useful, if not indispensable, that they be systematically classified and analyzed. Spohr's lack of understanding for Beethoven and Milhaud's grudge against Wagner to name but two examples tell us far more about Spohr and Milhaud than about Beethoven and Wagner, are psychologically as well as artistically significant of the forma mentis of the two firstnamed in each pair, and make them more easily and correctly understandable to us.