"Reviewing music or reviewing anything is a writing job. It's nice if you are experienced in the field you are writing about, but writing is what you are doing"
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Thomson is quietly tearing down the most flattering myth in arts culture: that criticism is a kind of honorary performance, earned by proximity to the stage. By insisting that reviewing is "a writing job", he drags the critic out of the green room and back to the desk. The jab is polite, but it lands. Expertise is "nice", not sacred. The real craft is language: selection, framing, proportion, nerve.
The subtext is a warning about credential worship. Music criticism loves its badges - conservatory training, insider access, a composer friend who texts back. Thomson, a composer who lived amid the 20th century's cultural machinery, knew how easily "experience" becomes an alibi for muddled prose and timid judgments. He also knew the reverse is true: a sharp ear without a sharp sentence leaves the reader with vibes, not insight. His line is less anti-expert than anti-mystique. If you can't make the case on the page, your authority doesn't travel.
Context matters here. Thomson wrote criticism himself and did it with a composer's impatience for foggy talk. Midcentury American criticism was still negotiating whether it was reporting, scholarship, or performance art. Thomson picks a side: it's writing, and writing has obligations - clarity, specificity, a sense of audience, and the courage to be quotable. The statement also anticipates today's culture of hot takes and influencer reviews. He isn't excusing ignorance; he's demanding that whatever you know gets converted into sentences that actually do something: describe, judge, persuade.
The subtext is a warning about credential worship. Music criticism loves its badges - conservatory training, insider access, a composer friend who texts back. Thomson, a composer who lived amid the 20th century's cultural machinery, knew how easily "experience" becomes an alibi for muddled prose and timid judgments. He also knew the reverse is true: a sharp ear without a sharp sentence leaves the reader with vibes, not insight. His line is less anti-expert than anti-mystique. If you can't make the case on the page, your authority doesn't travel.
Context matters here. Thomson wrote criticism himself and did it with a composer's impatience for foggy talk. Midcentury American criticism was still negotiating whether it was reporting, scholarship, or performance art. Thomson picks a side: it's writing, and writing has obligations - clarity, specificity, a sense of audience, and the courage to be quotable. The statement also anticipates today's culture of hot takes and influencer reviews. He isn't excusing ignorance; he's demanding that whatever you know gets converted into sentences that actually do something: describe, judge, persuade.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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