A fascinating blog here about the nature of classical music criticism by Greg Sandow. "I've said that classical music reviews normally don't do what a lot of pop reviews do - engage the music (and, even more, the critic) with the world outside the music." Later in the post, he writes: "Would anyone now say that they'd almost lost their self-control during Tristan, or that they'd be capable of anything mad? Is there anything at all in classical music that would make someone feel this way - and, even more to the point, would any classical music critic ever say they felt such things, even if they really did feel them?"
Here is a review in the British press from the past week in which a classical music critic has admitted to a huge and irrational emotional reaction to a concert. And here is a piece I was proud to commission way back in 2000: Tim Ashley on the visceral, utterly emotional power of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, which for him (and for me, too) is still as overwhelming as for the 19th-century writers Sandow quotes. He says of it: "Tristan remains one of the most shattering things ever written. All you can do when faced with the opera is sit back, surrender and be amazed."
