This is all very true. One problem is that the more 'senior' you get (i.e. the longer you've been around the scene), the less people seem willing to offer even constructive criticism. Why? For fear that they may seem (as it were) increasingly tendentious in doing so? I regret that. I have a handful (4/5) of people (mostly composers) who I know will tell me like it is, in any situation; but I do wish other friends and colleagues would be more forthcoming sometimes. I'm a big boy. I can take it.  

Have you tried rotating 180º?

It's been my practice for many years to write rock gig reviews for various on-line forums (the reviews then end up archived on my web site). I don't have any musical knowledge so I just give my subjective opinion of how the music made me feel rather than how technically good it was. As I generally only to to gigs where I know I will enjoy the music, my reviews are almost always positive (and tending towards hyperbole).

A couple of years ago, I happened to be talking to two performers after a gig (they were personally selling the t-shirts, the gig being a very small affair with no roadies  ), when one of them said, out of the blue, "You're David, aren't you?" and the other chimed in with "Oh, we read all your reviews!"

 

 

Memories of all my reviews came flooding back...

Announced my undying love for them? Check.
Promised to follow them to the ends of the Earth? Check.
Actually called one of them "The Divine Angela"? Check 

Now that's awkward!


The next time I sat down to review them, I thought long and hard about what I should write. Knowing they were reading it (and laughing at me?) make me incredibly self conscious.

But censoring myself because I knew they would be reading would be admitting that I had been previously saying things "behind their backs", as it were, and make them seem even worse. (If that makes sense.)

So I wrote a long, gushing, but honest, review of how perfect the singer was and how I would travel hundreds of miles just to hear her...

She e-mailed me to thank me for the nice review


I know that's not really analogous to your dilemma, Tommo, but I felt like sharing 

I saw a fairy today, little and green it was, I did like it. It cheered me up so much

That's the one! She didn't have such a lovely lot of drink with her though!!

I always try to be honest with composers, although inevitably the better you know someone the more you know that there are certain kinds of criticism they will want to hear, and others they won't, and there are good friends I would be very hesitant before saying certain things too. (Also, there's some point in voicing reservations about specific details or even about specific pieces in comparison to other pieces, but probably little point on the whole in telling someone if you think the whole stylistic or technical foundation of what they're doing is suspect ...)

Also, if you know a particular composer reasonably well but doesn't see him/her very often, you don't want the only things you ever say to them to be negative and you might therefore feel inclined to accentuate the positives. This is different from when you don't know someone at all; in that case you probably don't mind being negative on your first encounter, if that's how you feel on the occasion in question and if you're not in the process of becoming friendly with the person.

Like Richard I think it's possible to be supportive of friends in public even when one has private reservations which may be expressed at another time. This isn't dishonest, it's just knowing what friendship means.

I also agree that directly after a premiere is not usually the best moment to voice reservations, partly because I find (not all the time, but probably around 50%) that my reservations alter on a second hearing, and also because I think composers deserve at least one night of people coming up saying nice things. I find it hard to lie in such circumstances, though, and usually try to avoid the composer if I don't have anything nice to say.

Martle will perhaps know the story of a certain travel writer and former music publisher who commented to one of her own composers after a premiere: 'Not one of your best pieces, is it, Gerald?' (The piece in question is called Dead March, and I think she was wrong.)

Turfan Fragment,
I agree with you. I often have little to say after I've heard the piece for the first time. I usually develop my opinion a few days after. I can revise my opinion several times until I come to some kind of personal conclusion about the piece.
I found out that no matter what I think about any new piece the composer of the piece most often knows more and better. Therefore I usually ask other people what they think about the piece. This way after a few days I develop more objective opinion.
There are some pieces of music that I don't have much doubt about and I know my opinion about them right away.