So I've Heard: Notes of a Migratory Music Critic (review)

As a student of American music criticism, I was very pleased when the great West Coast critic Alan Rich's latest book found its way to my desk. So I've Heard: Notes of a Migratory Music Critic is an extraordinary collection of Rich's critical writing ("outcries") over the past twenty-five years and covers a broad range of subjects including his observations on music of the past and the present.

For those unfamiliar with his writing style, the following amuse-gueule from his preface offers a taste of his truly distinctive approach to the literary art and addresses his decision to uproot himself from what many consider to be the music epicenter of the United States, New York, to move to the West Coast.

Almost all of these assorted outcries date from what the history guys would refer to as my "third" or "late" or "sunset" period when—at an age when most people would have learned to know better if they ever will—I chucked a perfectly respectable New York existence, made my way west ostensibly for one year, and then lost my return ticket. For reasons that make no sense to me, or to anyone at all close to me, I have found life in California —even the musical life—extraordinarily congenial. I don't surf; I'm not even sure I remember how to dog-paddle. I don't "make the scene" (or whatever the current expression might be). I do own a Jacuzzi, because it's good for my arthritis, and I do pick oranges in my backyard—but from a neighbor's tree.... For all or none of the above reasons, I love writing in California.

(p. xv)

Rich excels in his profession for he possesses a facility which is daunting to all except the best writers on music—that of being able to translate into words commentary on what is essentially an aural art form. This difficulty was well explained to me years ago by the American composer Roger Hannay (1930–2006), who remarked that the only valid analysis of a musical composition was another composition. Years later, he expanded on this idea in an unpublished article of 1985, "The Creative Arts and the Composer," which found its way into his self-published book, My Book of Life: A Collection of Autobiographical Essays (rev. ed. Chapel Hill, NC, [1998]):

When writing about their work, authors have the happy advantage of doing so in their own medium. Not so composers and painters who, assuming the unfamiliar and treacherous medium of the written word, enter into the society of letters, tiptoeing about, eager for acceptance, unsure of the welcome, and at some point certain to trip over the carpet, smashing the antique glass.... Of course, the best way for composers, painters, or sculptors to comment on their work is to compose more music, and paint more paintings, or mold more sculptures.

(p. 597)

The disadvantage of the critic has always been a matter of having the proper language in which to address their subject, and this was recognized over eighty years ago by Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi in his book, The Principles and Methods of Musical Criticism (London: Oxford University Press, 1923):

The chief difficulty with which the critic has to contend is the inadequacy and looseness of the vocabulary at his disposal, for the purposes of describing as well as of judging.

It is generally impossible to describe music in words. At times the specific technical description is possible (especially of single points), but comparatively seldom. And even when it is, its critical import will remain limited. The effects produced by music may be described impressively, but not always with sufficient accuracy to constitute a contribution to criticism.

(pp. 126–27)

From very early on, Rich was consciously aware of the evasiveness of an effective language for musical description as evinced from the following passage in his early volume, Careers & Opportunities in...