Analytical Listening and Aesthetic Experience in Music Criticism

In this article, I discuss the methodological and contextual aspects of writing music criticism, drawing cues from applied musicology and autoethnography. The challenge for any music critic is the question of the relationship between objective and subjective approaches. I analyze the relationship between analytical listening and aesthetic experience, using the examples of two music reviews of Ivo Pogorelić’s piano recitals that I wrote. The interpretations of this pianist are suitable for the analysis precisely because he is commonly seen as an unconventional, even controversial pianist, and his interpretations of romantic music are often regarded as examples of anti-academicism and even deconstruction of pianistic canons accumulated during the 20th century. Against that term, I will talk about liberation, which is perhaps a more suitable label for Pogorelić’s modernist approach to performance.