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What would Aristotle have made of it?

October 17, 2008 By

Here's the text of yesterday's Free thought on Radio 3.   Norman Lebrecht: In Defence of Criticism     One morning before too long, you will wake up and find last night's opera premiere reviewed in your paper by Covent Garden's chief executive and the new play at the National by a drizzle of audience comments.   The role of arts critic is being eroded and, unless we do something about it, discussion of the arts will soon be monopolised by promoters - as it is already on … [Read more...]

10/17/08 12:55 PM | filed under: main |

All the best things in life aren’t free

October 16, 2008 By

All those who have been reading 'In a Critical Condtion' on this blog will be encouraged to know that the crisis in criticism theme has been picked up by BBC Radio 3. This morning I gave the Free Thought talk on the subject - streamed here from tomorrow - and tonight I will be defending it on Night Waves against the Guardian's editor of online reviews. Professional criticism is a pre-requisite of democracy. Free online reviews are weightless. Discuss.   … [Read more...]

10/16/08 3:34 PM | filed under: main |

The man who said **** to TV

October 13, 2008 By

My big hero of the financial crash is Marcel Reich-Ranicki who, given an achievement award on German's second TV channel, ZDF, thrust it back at the presenter and denounced the whole of public television as 'rubbish'. Reich-Ranicki, 88, is Germany's foremost literary critic and, as a result of his hour-long weekly discussion programme on the screen, a national figure. No respecter of reputations, he has fallen out with every leading author from Gunter Grass down when their books … [Read more...]

10/13/08 9:23 AM | filed under: main |

Radio vacant

October 10, 2008 By

The guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs this morning was David McVicar. He was introduced by Kirsty Young with a text that read something like 'at 42, he has long been regarded as the leading British opera director of his generation ... he is so busy around the world that his diary is filled up to 2013.' I can't give you the exact words of the introduction since the programme is one of the very few that is not available on the BBc i-player, for reasons of 'rights ownership.' However, … [Read more...]

10/10/08 10:05 AM | filed under: main |

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