BOO KS
469
tion he is probably most often associated with in readers' minds- were
reprinted in
Music in the Nation ; Music Observed,
which is clearly
intended to give an overall view of his career, contains what he considers
his best work since then, together with a few
Nation
columns also in the
earlier collection and a number of pieces done in the thirties and forties
for other journals.
Limitations of space prevent me from discussing Haggin's particular
judgments and so I must simply assert, without attempting to show,
that he has succeeded remarkably well in living up to his own stipulation
that a music critic must accurately describe the object before him and
must "give his reader not only an honest judgment but the basis of this
judgment, the ideas about music and performance which will add up in
the reader's mind to musical understanding,
to
a basis for his own
judgment." Though he has often been accused of being narrowly dog–
matic and over-intellectual, actually his range of appreciation is as wide
as his taste is discriminating, and he is perhaps most illuminating on music
usually not considered worth uncondescending attention: early and mid–
dle Verdi, the work of composers like Rossini and Tchaikovsky, beauti–
fully wrought performances of "concert favorites," Broadway show music,
and jazz. One might even sum up his achievement as a practical critic
by saying-with a good deal of exaggeration but at least as much truth
-that he has shown that if you aren't excited by Toscanini's performance
of
Dance of the Hours
or by Beiderbecke's solo entrance on
I'm Coming
Virginia,
then there's probably a good deal you're missing in Schnabel's
performances of Beethoven's last sonatas.
To see why this is an important thing to have done we must tum
to what I am tempted-despite Haggin's fierce suspicion of all theoriz–
ing-to call the theoretical side of his work: "the ideas about music
and performance" that underlie his particular judgments, and (just as
important) his view of criticism and his sense of his audience.
All his writing has taken off from the assumption implied by the
title of his book
Music ror the Man Who Enjoys "Hamlet,"
that because
formal education and ordinary daily life better prepare us
to
deal with
literature and even with the visual arts than with music, there is a
large and sophisticated audience fa r more capable of enjoying
Hamlet
than its musical analogues-Beethoven's last sonatas, say, and Schnabel's
performances of them. The problem is not merely one of inexperience,
however, for the intellectual sophistication such people already possess
can be at least as grea t an obstacle to attaining musical ·sophistication.
The more adept you are at handling ideas, the more liable you will
be-when you approach music-to let ideas slip between you and what
