One of my reviewer colleagues had a theory that a critic anxious to preserve his impartiality should never see the pieces which he has to review, in order, he said, to avoid being influenced by the acting. Such influence can operate in three ways: first by making something flat and ugly seem beautiful, or at any rate passable; secondly by producing the opposite effect, distorting the shape of a work that really is noble and graceful so as to make it seem repellent; and finally by making it impossible to understand the work at all, either as a whole or in its details, by obliterating it altogether. But what made my colleague’s theory especially original was that he didn’t even read the works he had to review, firstly because new works are generally not available in print, and then again because he didn’t want to let himself be influenced, either for good or ill, by the author’s style. This perfect incorruptibility obliged him to “compose” incredible accounts of pieces which he’d neither seen nor read, and led him to expound some very striking opinions on music he hadn’t heard.

I’ve often regretted not being able to put such a fine theory into practice myself, for the reader who disdainfully puts down his newspaper and thinks about something completely different after a brief glance over the first few lines of a review cannot conceive the anguish endured in listening to so many new operas, or the pleasure the reviewer would feel if he didn’t have to see them at all. Besides, in reviewing a piece he knew nothing about, he would have scope to be original. He might even unwittingly, and without being guilty of bias, be helpful to the authors by inventing some novelty which might inspire his readers to want to see the new work.

Whereas by sticking to the traditional approach, as we usually do, and doing our best to listen attentively to the pieces we have to describe to the public, we’re forced always to say almost exactly the same, since basically they always are almost exactly the same. As a result we involuntarily do great injustice to many new works, for how can people be expected to go and see them when we’ve explained truthfully and clearly just what they’re like?