Books, Arts & Manners: Trumpet of Outrage

Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture, by Samuel Lipman (David R. Godine, 431 pp., $24.95)

‘ANYONE who fancies him-self a thinker,” Samuel Lip man writes in Arguing Music, Arguing for Culture, his third collection of critical essays, should have the experience of mixing his ideas with his labor.” For many years a distinguished concert pianist, Lipman has labored on behalf of American music in a variety of other ways: as music critic for Commentary and The New Criterion; as a former member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts; and as artistic director of the Waterloo Music Festival. Despised by those few members of the musical avant-garde who trouble themselves to read hostile criticism, he is without doubt the most important music critic in America. His power and distinction come from the fact that, like Archilochus’s hedgehog, he knows one big thing and is unafraid to shout it from the rooftops: America’s musical culture, like the rest of its high culture, is sick unto death.

About the Author

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.

Featured Tags

Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture, by Samuel Lipman (David R. Godine, 431 pp., $24.95)

‘ANYONE who fancies him-self a thinker,” Samuel Lip man writes in Arguing Music, Arguing for Culture, his third collection of critical essays, should have the experience of mixing his ideas with his labor.” For many years a distinguished concert pianist, Lipman has labored on behalf of American music in a variety of other ways: as music critic for Commentary and The New Criterion; as a former member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts; and as artistic director of the Waterloo Music Festival. Despised by those few members of the musical avant-garde who trouble themselves to read hostile criticism, he is without doubt the most important music critic in America. His power and distinction come from the fact that, like Archilochus’s hedgehog, he knows one big thing and is unafraid to shout it from the rooftops: America’s musical culture, like the rest of its high culture, is sick unto death.

About the Author

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.