who shall decide when critics disagree?

[calimac]

Heuwell Tircuit (who writes for the same outfit I do) liked the string quartet concert that athenais and I enjoyed so much last week. Joshua Kosman (who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle) didn't. (General opinion around the SFCV editorial staff is to tsk gently at "dear Joshua's testy moods." See this week's editorial by George Thomson.)

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Kosman's review seemed to be of a different concert than the one I attended. I have to agree with him that there were some intonation problems now and again. But we've been through this sort of thing with great pianists who hit a lot of wrong notes: the real question is, does the interpretation work? Yes, the performance of Death and the Maiden was "underpowered", if one must put it that way; but it was also crisp, precise and focused. I thought so, anyway. The Quintet, though, was just riveting throughout, even though Ronald Leonard's cello didn't blend with the others (not a disadvantage in the 2d cello part in this work). The elegance and smoothness of the Adagio in particular astonished me: I wanted to take it home and bottle it.

In other news, Saul Bellow has died. You know, I've never read a single book of his. I guess I read fiction mostly to be taken out of myself and my environment, and intensely ethnically Jewish-American authors don't seem to offer much of that for me.

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

My favorite Bellows is Henderson the Rain King, which as the title suggests has some odd elements to it. I've read a couple other of his novels, and while I admire the writing, there's too little action and I don't care quite enough about his characters.