“Any reviewer who finds quickly the compact phrase…has
clearly a talent for letters. If he has also a talent for judgment and no fear
of using it, …then he is a good reviewer. A good reviewer does not have to be
right; he has only to have a good mind and to speak it.”—Composer-critic Virgil
Thomson (1896-1989), “A Free Critical Spirit,” New York Herald Tribune Books, Jan. 27, 1957, in Virgil Thomson: The State of Music and Other Writings, edited by Tim Page
(2016)
