a tale of two reviews
Aug. 5th, 2008 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacI have two reviews published this week, the one I was originally going to do, and the one I was pulled in as a substitute for on the afternoon of the concert. (I got the phone message from my editor about 2 PM, and by 6:30 there I was in Santa Cruz, munching on dinner in the form of a quick pitabread sandwich from the street fair outside the auditorium, and getting ready to listen.)
They're rather different. The Music@Menlo chamber music concert, which is the one I attended with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athenais, is not what I consider my most satisfactory work. I didn't have a lot to say - if I'd written a review here it'd probably been a quick 150 words, but that isn't enough for serious coverage, so it's padded. The problem is that, except for the Wolf on which I did permit myself to be a bit snippy, I didn't have many strong reactions to the performance. Note the critical reader reply at the end. Contrary to what you might expect, I don't think this guy is wrong nor do I really disagree with him. There are hints in my comments on the Brahms of vague dissatisfaction - the underplayed horn, the observation that the piano while not naturally Brahmsian was at least more so than the other players - but it was ambiguous enough that I didn't have the courage of a conviction to be critical.
Here all the works were familiar to me, and the review is all about the performance. (It doesn't have to be, but more often than not it is.) At the Cabrillo Festival, the works were all brand new to me and so was one of the three composers, so the review is all about the compositions. Indeed, I find it hard to judge the quality of a performance if I don't otherwise know the work. That's not unique to me. John Corigliano, one of the composers represented, said in the post-concert talk that he's always thrilled by a second recording of one of his works, in part because it lets listeners compare two different interpretations. In a case like this I just have to keep my ears firmly alert and take lots of notes.
Still, I wish I could be less formal in my reviews. I wrote that one of the pieces had a section that sounded like "the kind of smooth jazz I associate with 1950s to 1960s easy-listening albums", but it belatedly occurs to me that if I'd been writing here I'd have said whose work I was thinking of specifically: Lou Busch, Allan Sherman's principal arranger. Now I'm afraid readers will think I meant Nelson Riddle, who is not what I was thinking of at all.
But if anything in this review gets letters, I suppose it'll be my criticism of babies in the classical concert hall. I'm a purist here: a musical performance is art painted in sound - acoustic, unamplified sound - and to make extraneous noise during it is the same as scribbling over a painting. (And I practice what I preach: I missed four concerts in about a week last fall - one of which I'd been scheduled to review - because of a persistent cough.) The parents must have realized soon enough that their babies were in the wrong place, as one left during the first piece and the other at its end. But if they were so willing to leave, why were they so desperate to attend that they brought their babies in the first place?
They're rather different. The Music@Menlo chamber music concert, which is the one I attended with
athenais, is not what I consider my most satisfactory work. I didn't have a lot to say - if I'd written a review here it'd probably been a quick 150 words, but that isn't enough for serious coverage, so it's padded. The problem is that, except for the Wolf on which I did permit myself to be a bit snippy, I didn't have many strong reactions to the performance. Note the critical reader reply at the end. Contrary to what you might expect, I don't think this guy is wrong nor do I really disagree with him. There are hints in my comments on the Brahms of vague dissatisfaction - the underplayed horn, the observation that the piano while not naturally Brahmsian was at least more so than the other players - but it was ambiguous enough that I didn't have the courage of a conviction to be critical.Here all the works were familiar to me, and the review is all about the performance. (It doesn't have to be, but more often than not it is.) At the Cabrillo Festival, the works were all brand new to me and so was one of the three composers, so the review is all about the compositions. Indeed, I find it hard to judge the quality of a performance if I don't otherwise know the work. That's not unique to me. John Corigliano, one of the composers represented, said in the post-concert talk that he's always thrilled by a second recording of one of his works, in part because it lets listeners compare two different interpretations. In a case like this I just have to keep my ears firmly alert and take lots of notes.
Still, I wish I could be less formal in my reviews. I wrote that one of the pieces had a section that sounded like "the kind of smooth jazz I associate with 1950s to 1960s easy-listening albums", but it belatedly occurs to me that if I'd been writing here I'd have said whose work I was thinking of specifically: Lou Busch, Allan Sherman's principal arranger. Now I'm afraid readers will think I meant Nelson Riddle, who is not what I was thinking of at all.
But if anything in this review gets letters, I suppose it'll be my criticism of babies in the classical concert hall. I'm a purist here: a musical performance is art painted in sound - acoustic, unamplified sound - and to make extraneous noise during it is the same as scribbling over a painting. (And I practice what I preach: I missed four concerts in about a week last fall - one of which I'd been scheduled to review - because of a persistent cough.) The parents must have realized soon enough that their babies were in the wrong place, as one left during the first piece and the other at its end. But if they were so willing to leave, why were they so desperate to attend that they brought their babies in the first place?
