PREP

posted by James Reel

     For this week's new content in San Francisco Classical Voice, Lisa Hirsch has written an article examining how critics prepare to do their work. She seems to cover all the bases, reporting that preparation ranges from delving into the scores beforehand to ... doing absolutely nothing. I must admit that I fall into the latter camp these days.
     In the music field, I'm already thoroughly familiar with most of the material I'm likely to encounter in concert, except for the newest scores. It's not quite fair to compare the performance at hand to the ideal performance in my head, and it's certainly a bad idea to hold the performers up to the standards and idiosyncracies of whatever CD I may listen to shortly before the concert. For new music, I'll do some background research on the composer, maybe listen to or look at some of the composer's earlier scores, but I usually don't pore over the new score before the concert. I prefer to have an experience as fresh as the audience's, and I'm confident that I can describe what's going on without having my nose in a score, particularly since I'm writing a brief general-interest review, not a detailed analysis.
     The same holds true for my theater criticism; if I do any research, it's after the performance. If my criticism is going to be of much value to a reader, it should first reflect the in-theater experience of the reader, with research and reflection coming afterward.