Rethinking Music Reviews: Beyond Judgment to Extra-Human Perspective

Collin Ziegler, writing for SF Classical Voice, reflects on the purpose of music reviews in a weekly think piece. He admits to a Pavlovian urge to find the judgment sentence in reviews, despite knowing that 'good' and 'bad' fail to capture artistic experience. His rush to judgment stems from a desire to belong to a community that cares about musical taste. However, he argues that music is more than social capital, and reviews should offer an 'extra-human perspective'—going beyond any single person's experience to sustain, investigate, and reshape the performance. He illustrates this with his experience reviewing the San Francisco Symphony's performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under conductor James Gaffigan at Davies Hall. Initially daunted by reviewing a classic, he found inspiration in a small detail: Gaffigan rushed through pauses in the third movement. This observation led him to reflect on other recordings and his own preferences, ultimately realizing that the review's purpose is not to judge but to bring the symphony back to life. He concludes that music exists both in the moment and beyond it, and reviews should center the reciprocal relationship between music and criticism rather than turning music into an object to appraise.