ARGUMENTS
121
accepted my explanation of the misunderstanding and proposed a
conference with Mr. Hatch after November 15 for an exchange of ideas.
This conference didn't take place until mid-January of 1956, a
couple of days after a column in which I reviewed
High Fidelity Record
Annual
1955, a collection of record criticism, had been rejected by Mr.
Hatch on the ground that he didn't think it was the business of a critic
to review other critics. This was the first matter discussed at the con–
ference; and when I pointed out that
The Nation
was refusing to
publish articles of mine of a kind it had been publishing for years–
which meant not only my occasional discussion of another critic's
writing, but the famous series on the book critics that Margaret
Marshall, with the collaboration of Mary McCarthy, did in the
thirties-Mr. Kirstein answered that he wanted to make it clear that
the fact that something had been done in the past didn't mean it would
be
done now, adding:
"The Nation
doesn't accept certain kinds of ad–
vertising now that it accepted a year ago." He said this with no aware–
ness of its offensive implication: that writing of mine which editors
of
The Nation
had considered fit
to
publish and William Sloane had
considered fit to reprint in
Music in The Nation,
was comparable to the
kind of advertising which
The Nation
no longer considered fit to accept.
Eventually Mr. Kirstein came to the central matter-of what Mr.
Hatch had in mind as my contribution to the new back section, which
The Nation
was going to feature in its promotion campaign to increase
its circulation. Mr. Hatch thereupon explained that the new back sec–
tion with which
The Nation
hoped to attract additional readers would
be a comprehensive chronicle of activity in the arts; and what he asked
of me, thellefore, was more reporting of live events and less of re–
cordings. I answered that since I had always covered live events it was
clear that I had no objection to covering them; but if the objective
was additional readers I reminded him and Mr. Kirstein of the hundreds
of letters I received each year, mostly from readers outside of New
York, who appeared to want the column as I wrote it; and I pointed
out that I did occasionally get a letter from an out-of-town reader
objecting to my giving space to reports of New York concerts that were
of interest only to New Yorkers, instead of giving it
to
more of the
recordings that were what people outside of New York listened to, but
I couldn't recall a single letter asking for less on recordings and more
on New York concerts. And if
The Nation
wanted additional readers,
one large group it might try to interest was the enormously increased
record-buying public, which provided
High Fidelity
with its entire
circulation. However, what I said had no effect on Mr. Hatch and Mr.
Kirstein; and I didn't persist.
