Every great composer, without exception, has been appreciated, admired, applauded, and loved in his own time. Even those who died miserably, died famous. Every composer's music reflects in its subject matter and in its style the source of the money the composer is living on while writing it. A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. You cannot have critics with standards, you can only have music with standards which critics may observe.
Criticism is the rationalization of intuitive musical experience.
Oliver Herford Classic music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. If one hears bad music it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation. Paul Valery Bel canto is to opera what pole-vaulting is to ballet. When in doubt, sing loud. I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.