For the sake of expectant posterity, especially that Soc. major of 2043 writing his thesis on those quaint old days when, even during a war, people had time to sit solemnly around listening to men twang cat-gut, blow straws, and thump on pigskin, it might be well to take leave of my sporadic incumbency of this post by letting off a little steam re music criticism and the state of music in general.

Every reviewer has his pet theories which he will defend against all comers to the bitter and unreasonable end, especially if they are lost causes. Haggin, for instance, in his zeal for the cause of Toscanini, wrote recently in the "Nation" that he found Koussevitsky's Beethoven and Brahms "impossible to listen to." For the most part, he is a very acute critic, perhaps the most acute, but he has an uncanny nose for the unpopular attitude. When Toscanini was at the height of his glory and powers back in '36, Haggin thought he was a pedantic Italian opera hack, but now that the aging maestro has very obviously lost his spark, Haggin is daily discovering new wonders of poetic sensitivity and insight in his tired performances. He waited two months after the performance of Shostakovitch's fan-fared Seventh to turn out one of the most magnificently scathing reviews in the history of American criticism, but when Toscanini last fall revived the music to "Romeo and Juliet" by Berlioz, who is generally considered a rather seedy romantic, he glowed with extravagant good feeling.

Now, to laymen who have more vital things to think about and can take their music or leave it, this guerilla warfare among the critics isn't very enlightening. Perhaps, if you read one paper or magazine long enough, you begin to catch on to what is going on and enjoy the fun. As the situation stands now, we have the critics all trying to work up a football-rally attitude toward orchestras, conductors, and even composers. "Time" magazine, for instance, loves to juggle the "Mid-Western league" against the "Eastern league," and play one conductor off against another as if American music were a species of indoor athletics. "Life" recently announced, in its paternal way, that it was becoming "unpatriotic" not to like the Shostakovitch Seventh. The result of all this hurrah-boys publicity about the mere periphery and mechanics of music itself, which, unlike football, can't be made a universal pastime without cheapening it beyond recognition. It takes as much practice in listening to understand Beethoven as it does practice in reading to enjoy Shakespeare. It is also foolish to attach some sort of moral valuation to one kind of music, as so many people do, as if you would get an aisle seat in Heaven for listening to "good" music, and roast in Hades for fainting yourself with jazz. Tolstoi thought that all music was an invention of the devil, and he may have been right. Jazz is the music of the moment as football is the sport of the moment, but classical music, like a game of chess, takes practice to be understood. The critics who try to "popularize" good music and whip up team spirit for conductors and orchestras, do so partly from lack of anything better to do, and partly to give themselves some kind of community dignity. The fault lies with the institution of music criticism, which, as it stands now, does more damage to its ailing Muse than it does good.