Ooh, Now do photography … or abstract painting … or fine wine … or hedge fund. Any field where the judgement of quality is subjective is going to be full of hailed charlatans and unrecognized geniuses. It's one of the true ironies of art.

The story about a two-bit plagiarizer is interesting, but the author doesn't really make the connection between hoim the rest of the music world. He refers to the Lera Auerbach Sonata as "pretentiously banal" but in the same breath says her "work has been performed by some of the best soloists alive." What are we to make of that? That the author is a good judge of the music and performers are poor judges of the music, even though they are presumably more intimately familiar with it?

Maybe it's the music critic who has no clothes, rather than the composer. Maybe we're all naked.