Thinking about music criticism

In short, the music criticism conference was intended to provide a context for the academic processing of the archive of Fritz Muggler (1930-2023). The extensive material from his many years of work has been conserved and inventoried at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) since 2016. The first project is entitled "Heard abroad": Swiss composers and performers at international new music festivals - perspectives from Zurich critic Fritz Muggler. Ivan Denes, Iris Eggenschwiler and project manager Lukas Näf explained the status of the work and illustrated Muggler's working methods using reviews of works by Maurizio Kagel and Klaus Huber.

The aim was therefore to classify music journalistic contributions in terms of music history. The guest lectures and subsequent discussions made it clear how difficult it is to formulate conclusive categories for this. Or, in other words, how the interface between science and journalism could be clearly defined. After all, a music critic is also a music historian and, conversely, a music historian is also a music critic.

The title of the conference was Music criticism in the context of contemporary music since the Second World War. The perspectives of the presentations were somewhat "donaueschingen-heavy" and concentrated mainly on music-philosophical positions from before the turn of the millennium. This is understandable. According to the invitation, the aim was to recognize narrative patterns or entrenched prejudices that influence the evaluation and classification of music in music history. The presentations by Jörn Peter Hiekel (conference chair together with Lukas Näf and Dominik Sackmann), Wolfgang Schreiber, Tobias Schick, Torsten Möller, Leonie Reineke, Björn Gottstein, Martin Kaltenecker and Thomas Meyer testified to their in-depth knowledge. It was impressive how many details the speakers remembered from their visits to Donaueschingen or were refreshed by the presentations.

For who?

Interestingly, the audience or the reader of the reviews played no role in the multi-layered considerations. The influence of editorial work was also only touched on in passing. Did we not have to think about this until the beginning of the 21st century? Perhaps because the cultural significance of (Western) high culture was not yet in doubt back then? Today, in 2024, the media speak the "language of entertainment" (Wolfgang Schreiber) more than ever. Music criticism is being pushed out of the feature pages of the daily press and specialist journals are disappearing, and not just for contemporary music.

The inclusion of younger critics such as Friederike Kenneweg, Hanna Schmidt and many others would have gone beyond the thematic scope of the conference, but would perhaps have provided fresh impetus. After all, classical expert music criticism seems to have lost its significance for the music market. Holger Noltze writes on September 25 in his Van-contribution to the German Record Critics' Award: "But to see an independent work of criticism, the not at all trivial search for artistic quality swept off the table as irrelevant, illuminated the realization in a flash: that the (ever special) relationship between the market and criticism of music has long since become completely decoupled; that the old idea: a good review, possibly a prize helps with sales, hardly plays a role in the reality of modern major marketing." (https://van-magazin.de/mag/schallplattenkritik-marktlogik-musikkritik).

In view of this loss of significance, further (i.e. more important or at least different) questions arise regarding the relationship between musicology and music journalism.

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Some videos of the conference will be posted in due course on https://www.zhdk.ch/forschung/imr/imr-video-11699 published. A book publication is also planned.

Link to the Muggler project at the ZHdK:
https://www.zhdk.ch/forschungsprojekt/im-ausland-gehoert-schweizer-komponisten-und-interpreten-an-internationalen-festivals-neuer-musik-569891