Nearly everyone has favorite critic. We love them or hate them, but we always read or listen to them (often mumbling in disagreement). I have deep respect and admiration for a few; Clive Barnes, John Percival, Patricia Boccadoro, Jennifer Dunning, and Anna Kisslegoff.

Who are your favorites? Who are the prominent critics that we should be heeding today?

I like Joan Accocela at the New Yorker. Her talk at Berkeley "Balanchine and Sex"--actually the original title was racier than that--was nutty and good. Judith Flanders at the TLS has a clear eye for ballet and Alastair Macauley has done more for uptown dance at the New York Times than anyone there in a long time. I like his little overarching comments, such as there were only two great geniuses of the 20th century: George Balanchine and Samuel Beckett, which I don't necessarily agree with but do admire the sentiment of.

For classical music I used to find myself in agreement with Anne Midgette, who has happily moved to from the New York Times to the Washington Post where she is their chief music critic.

[And whatever critics we like, we should all remember to regularly click onto their reviews, so that they get good internet traffic marks with their publishers.]

A great idea. And one, I confess, that never occurred to me. Thanks, Quiggin.

Yes, Acocella is excellent, and I also like Deborah Jowitt, because she said things other people weren't saying, and doesn't seem self-conscious, while being very knowledgeable.



Is it the total outlandishness and outrageous decadence of such a remark that makes it somehow endearing? Thanks for reporting it, though. I think this kind of remark should be the province of the artist like Balanchine or Beckett themselves, not because it's any more true when they say it, but it still seems like an 'earned irresponsible flourish'; whereas when a critic says it, it just sounds to me like the most preposterous and pretentious posturing one could hope to never hear. Because it is grounded in absolutely nothing of substance, and reminds me of once looking through a Judith Krantz novel and seeing the sentence 'Jews are like Paris'. My girlfriend at the time and I howled over that one, got a lot of mileage out of it. Macauley's 'cute remark' is on no higher level--senile. It is interesting to me that certain arts critics get to the point when their idea of daring is to see what the most jaded possible thing is they can possibly manage to float. But I'd never take anything of Macauley's seriously again after hearing such tripe. That remark qualifies as the single silliest remark I've ever heard a critic make--it is as if he were channelling Oscar Wilde--and even makes me long for the halcyon days when the Queenan article was still fresh--two long days ago. Queenan almost seems green and just got off the bus by comparison.

Oh well, Ada Louise Huxtable has always been worthwhile.

I must apologize for my haste in quoting Mr. Macaulay without double fact checking--and making him sound more decadent and outlandish and absolutist than in fact he was. His whole statement was more limited in reach:



This was from a review (NYT: 2/9/2008) of Christopher Wheeldon's "Rococo Variations," in which Macaulay was faulting Wheeldon for his slow ear for variation form, and for his lack of a sense of interesting dance theater. The Balanchine pieces he was comparing "Rococo" to were "Divertimento from 'La Baiser'" and "Stars and Stripes," which were on the same program.

Cyril Beaumont, Richard Buckle and Peter Williams, sadly all dead. Of the present UK critics nothing would make me happier than to see the whole lot of them made redundant by the internet, except for John Percival.

Well so much for Richard Strauss.

Among others ..

Statements like that aren’t criticism, they’re attention-getting devices. In a daily review aimed at the general public, I’ll excuse it.

I don't find it a surprising thought for a dance critic. If it was a pronouncement I might see it as attention-getting, but the way it's couched I find it unremarkable.

I like Robert Gottlieb. His opinions can be very harsh, but he has a great sense of humor, a genuine and obvious love and knowledge of ballet, and is a great writer. Moreover, as an important editor, his wide knowledge of culture, politics, and history infuses his work with a delightful "wow he knows THIS too" quality. I love reading his reviews not just for his opinions on dance but for his knowledge, wit, and style.

My other favorites having been mentioned along the way, I'll just add Robert Greskovic's name to the list. But I don't consider anyone writing today quite so valuable to read as Edwin Denby and Arlene Croce, not just in "their" time, but today as well, for part of the value I find in reading good criticism is the way it exercises your mind, tones it, gets it in shape for its present activity, not just for its use as a consumer guide to ticket purchases.

As for (classical) music critics, I pay attention to Mortimer H. Frank and Michael Ullman as scouts to rewarding recordings available today (Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself...), but no one I know of working today really compares with Bernard Haggin.