concert on the way to being reviewed
Jan. 21st, 2007 06:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacSo I survived the concert last night whose Thursday edition had gotten such a bad review in yesterday's paper. Either they were much better last night or I'm just hearing quite differently from that other reviewer. I drafted my entire review in an hour after I got home, so at least I'm on top of things.
Yes, there were some flubs in the Dvorak and some places where the ensemble threatened to break apart, but that's SOP for this orchestra much of the time, and they often do well enough despite it. This is not something that brings out a full-throated pan from anyone who covers them.
In Mark O'Connor's violin concerto, the composer as soloist and the orchestral winds seemed to be playing in different works at times. But this is a new composition that I'd never heard before: maybe it's supposed to sound like that. On Thursday O'Connor played no encore, and the reviewer speculated that he was too dispirited by the way the performance went. Yesterday he did play an encore, so maybe he was happier with the performance, or maybe he'd just read the review and decided to defy it, or maybe something else.
The pre-concert lecturer, a violist with the orchestra, was asked by an audience member - not me - what she thought of that review. She said she hadn't read it because she'd been working straight through since eight that morning (more rehearsals? she didn't say), but she'd heard about it. And she quoted Frank Sinatra as saying, after a performance of his got horribly panned, "Reviewers are people who go out onto the battlefield and shoot the wounded."
Oh really? Many musicians I know are very self-critical: would they say this after they've gotten a good review that they're not sure they deserve? If not, then this isn't a criticism of reviewers: instead, you're saying that what you want is a sycophant.
A reviewer's praise isn't worth anything unless that reviewer is equally forthright with criticism, and we'd be dishonest if we did anything other than call them as we hear them.
Yes, there were some flubs in the Dvorak and some places where the ensemble threatened to break apart, but that's SOP for this orchestra much of the time, and they often do well enough despite it. This is not something that brings out a full-throated pan from anyone who covers them.
In Mark O'Connor's violin concerto, the composer as soloist and the orchestral winds seemed to be playing in different works at times. But this is a new composition that I'd never heard before: maybe it's supposed to sound like that. On Thursday O'Connor played no encore, and the reviewer speculated that he was too dispirited by the way the performance went. Yesterday he did play an encore, so maybe he was happier with the performance, or maybe he'd just read the review and decided to defy it, or maybe something else.
The pre-concert lecturer, a violist with the orchestra, was asked by an audience member - not me - what she thought of that review. She said she hadn't read it because she'd been working straight through since eight that morning (more rehearsals? she didn't say), but she'd heard about it. And she quoted Frank Sinatra as saying, after a performance of his got horribly panned, "Reviewers are people who go out onto the battlefield and shoot the wounded."
Oh really? Many musicians I know are very self-critical: would they say this after they've gotten a good review that they're not sure they deserve? If not, then this isn't a criticism of reviewers: instead, you're saying that what you want is a sycophant.
A reviewer's praise isn't worth anything unless that reviewer is equally forthright with criticism, and we'd be dishonest if we did anything other than call them as we hear them.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 04:02 pm (UTC)Whether performers, writers, or other artists benefit from reading reviews is a separate question: even where there's criticism the artist could use to improve future performances/works ("don't perform when you're coming down with the flu" may not be, depending on previous commitments), I gather that at least some people react strongly enough to published criticism that they're best off reading neither praise nor pans.
Regardless, I really can't see anything to be gained by asking a performer right before she performs a particular program what she thought of a bad review two nights earlier. Almost any answer opens the performer to attack--she's oversensitive, she's defensive, she's arrogant, she doesn't care about the audience. So she might as well quote Sinatra. Reviewers may not be shooting the wounded, because they're not worth antying unless they're honest (though some may lean too far to the negative, as others to the positive), but someone who reads that review, chooses to attend the concert anyway, and then asks the pre-concert lecturer about it is rubbing salt in the wound.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 04:21 pm (UTC)Performers/writers/etc who shouldn't read reviews are those who feel called upon to bash the entire profession of reviewing whenever they get a bad one.
A favorite is to claim that a reviewer is a frustrated failed writer. That's a bizzarely common line in SF, a field in which the pioneering tough reviewers were James Blish and Damon Knight.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 07:28 pm (UTC)