Carnatic music is one of India's grand traditions, albeit not a big following as cricket or movies, but a niche following. So its interesting when one of this blog's "patrons" LiC and T.M. Krishna noted Carnatic musician decide to joust on the value provided by cHindu's music critics during the music season.
During a felicitation ceremony of S.V. Krishnamurthy LiC made this passing statement that Indian musicians did not respond well to criticism and wanted to listen to words of praise.
In response T.M. Krishna responded,
To which LiC responded,
While in principle I would side with LiC that musicians typically are thin-skinned (knowing quite a few in my family and friends) the larger issue is that LiC should not be the one make that statement. After all he did not like it when others rightly criticized his paper for being a Chinese and communist mouth-piece. He still has the gall to employ people who are assumed associated with the "paid-news" scandal. Its a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In this context if you refer back to cHindu's music reviews they are amatuerish as Krishna rightly claims vacillating between saccharine sweet praise to rabid criticism without details or understanding of carnatic music. I would say this round goes to Krishna on points.
During a felicitation ceremony of S.V. Krishnamurthy LiC made this passing statement that Indian musicians did not respond well to criticism and wanted to listen to words of praise.
He said many musicians and sabhas were “thin-skinned” and “not used to robust criticism that musicians in western countries get all the time whether they like it or not.They want only favourable reviews, but that is decidedly not The Hindu's expectation,” he said, citing the guidelines evolved by the newspaper in consultation with critics for reviewing concerts and dance performances. He said the critic was an individual expert rasika and writer on music and The Hindu chose “its critics and respected their musical knowledge, integrity, independence, judgement and writing style.”
In response T.M. Krishna responded,
No amount of guidelines will help unless the right people are found. I completely agree that robust criticism is very necessary but it can be robust only when people are chosen very carefully and at the same time I do agree that musicians need to understand the role of critics. But one is not going to happen without the other.
To which LiC responded,
We and tens of thousands of our readers, knowledgeable as well as lay (like me), think highly of our critics, most of whom are well schooled in Carnatic music or are experts. The majority of them, in fact, are not staff journalists.
While in principle I would side with LiC that musicians typically are thin-skinned (knowing quite a few in my family and friends) the larger issue is that LiC should not be the one make that statement. After all he did not like it when others rightly criticized his paper for being a Chinese and communist mouth-piece. He still has the gall to employ people who are assumed associated with the "paid-news" scandal. Its a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In this context if you refer back to cHindu's music reviews they are amatuerish as Krishna rightly claims vacillating between saccharine sweet praise to rabid criticism without details or understanding of carnatic music. I would say this round goes to Krishna on points.
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