Funny piece on WQXR about historical spats between musicians and critics. Relevant to recent news. A sample:
[Critic Eduard Hanslick] once described the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde as “the painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound” and the composer as a “boneless tonal mollusk.”
It leaves out my favourite musician’s response to negative criticism, composer Max Reger’s short letter to critic Rudolf Louis:
I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me!
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