Music Critic Should See 'Internal Life' Of A Composition

The guiding principle of the music critic should be to seek out and discover the "internal life" in a piece of music, according to Bernard Haggin, music reviewer for The Nation. In a speech entitled "The Approach to Music," delivered Thursday in Sanders Theatre, he said that "music is made to live by the surprises in composition and changes in harmony and melody" which are created by the author to interest the music lover and to create variety.

Criticizing the use of history to explain the compositions of great artists of the past, he said that even so great an artist as Mozart becomes artificial to present-day music lovers if he is seen only through history.