Indeed. It was quite clear (to me, at least) that you were asking whether we can talk about 'good' without 'asserting that one person's opinion is better than another'.

Can I ask you to look again at my earlier response? I did mention social (interpersonal) considerations there, and would be interested to know if it's something similar to what you had in mind yourself:

(And here's my original attempt at a definition, just for reference:)

Sorry, only saw your reply #15 after posting my #16.

That's certainly not what I was trying to say. Maybe I should have said 'judged by the perceiver as successfully meeting certain criteria of value which while somewhat context-dependent have an (at least in part) communally agreed meaning in relation to traditions of reception', but I thought my following sentence made that clear.

Just to clarify, I think the 'judg[ment] by the perceiver as successfully meeting ...' is subjective, but I don't think the 'certain criteria' themselves are subjective.

Here is the full definition you offered:


Still it doesn't say anything about which aesthetics (and aesthetics can themselves incorporate questions of entertainment, sociality, etc.) or which considerations of entertainment, sociality, etc. Instead of trying to answer the question, it seems to me just to be saying that various people will bring various criteria to bear upon answering it (which could mean a great many things). That's why I say it's an evasion. I'd like to know which criteria, and in what manner, you would offer to answer the question in the thread.

So I presume we'll be hearing something from Ian a little more precise than the following some time very soon?

Total and utter nonsense. In no sense do I have 'more of a handle' on this question than anyone else here, just that I do think it is a valid question. You continuously try to dismiss the issue (and that makes me wonder why you are posting to a thread like this?). I don't know why you think I assert that 'there must surely be objective standards of quality in music'; I just think there are other criteria worth considering as well as populist ones. I would characterise your responses to these issues as follows:

(a) I, Richard Barrett, now benefit from public money.
(b) The criteria by which the music I write and like are favoured are generally accepted within the narrow circles I inhabit.
(c) This music I write or listen to would never be played or commissioned (or broadcast) without public money, but let's not talk about that.
(d) Therefore, one should never question the underlying set of values, should ignore any objections to such criteria that emerge from outside of these circles, furthermore any attempt to put these questions into a wider context should be shouted down.

If you don't like public money being invoked as a reason why this question is of any importance, would programming on Radio 3 be any better? If most of the modernist work you like was taken off the airwaves and replaced mostly by the Jenkins, the Nymans and so on, which would likely appeal to more people, I reckon you would be complaining about this? But if so, what arguments would you have for asserting that this is a retrograde move other than 'They aren't putting on what I like'?

Let's also see how you would respond if someone starts making the argument that a professor of contemporary composition should be replaced by someone working in the popular music field, who can teach music that more students want to listen to and write (and trust me, that process is happening).


There are a great many highly intelligent people, outside of the confines of forums like this, who have little time for modernist music, even some that question the value of classical music at all. I don't agree with them, but respect their opinions also, and would engage with them. And there are some people on this board who question why the music that you (and I) like should be supported by the taxpayer, considering that few of the wider classical-music loving community (let alone the wider community) like it at all. I do think those opinions have to be taken seriously as well and at least addressed; I do not get the feeling you do.

I don't play 'arcane contemporary music'. I play music that engages with me and where I feel I can communicate that engagement.

At least that's how it works when I do my own programming.

The kind of money that goes into ensemble funding actually wouldn't do a great deal towards constructing or enlarging a community arts centre. There's a bit of a scale problem there.

I don't think you can answer the thread title but I've already given my response to it: for me the word 'good' is too loose to be useful. At least without resorting to a degree of subjectivity which according to my understanding of your posts you would reject.

I refuse to engage with any of the important issues facing today's musicians, preferring to respond in a facile and flippant way which carries no intellectual weight and exposes me as no better than any other subsidised academic.

I think I shall go out and eat something now. Wonder if there's any nice food to be had in Antwerp?