Talking of Ranjitsingh's art with the willow, A.G.Gardiner refers to the difference in the way Shakespeare and Schiller evoke the sense of tragedy. Shakespeare drops a kerchief and crystallises tragedy in that act, whereas Schiller, even when he sets a whole city on fire, falls short of the ideal evocation of the tragic sense. (Gardiner's comparison of Ranjitsingh's flick of the wrist to the dropping of the kerchief is a different tale - we need not go into it here). In music too, there are Shakespeares and Schillers - those who condense the spirit of the raga in a few deft touches and those who, inspite of the most elaborate excursions into a raga, fail to emphasise its intimate beauties. The critic's function is not to praise the one and pillory the other - but merely to bear witness to the artistic integrity of both the exercises.

There are many occasions when Shakespeare himself becomes a writer a la Marlowe - if not Schiller. These occasions only prove that "humankind can bear no more". In the music criticism of today, Shakespeare and Schiller are resurrected to do the "battle of the books" where Swift left it.

There are those who equate music with their conception of a shimmering empyrean on music and attribute to it a distinction of phlogiston. There are the Calibans and Ariels of music criticism. Both are "inhuman". Criticism is not a creator of values. It is merely a witness to values. The proper realm of value-creation is the inner vision of beauty which every artist attains to in the pursuit of his art. Out of this realm may arise both Shakespearean and Schillerian conceptions of tragedy. The greatness of each of them is that he was true to his vision. It is in this integrity that the truth of the art has its being. Phony classicism and aping athleticism are both to be decried in music.

Any criticism which makes a fetish of either should be dutifully disregarded. How easy it is, nowadays, for the critic to assume the role of a lawgiver! There are even critics who boast of their achievement in "improving" the quality of music merely by passing irrelevant strictures through the inanities and innuendoes of their critical effusion. One must pity the critic for his effrontery. But one must pity even more the musician who feels obliged to "improve" his music by the standards of the egregious critic.

- AEOLUS