THE WEAK IN REVIEW

posted by James Reel

    Norman Lebrecht, one of those writers who is great fun to read even though much of what he writes is wrong-headed, has, rather late in the day, produced this tribute to Anton Webern. It was Webern’s dire influence that killed public appreciation of classical music in the third quarter of the 20th century, when hack imitators with no musical talent insinuated themselves into American universities, declared that Webern was god, and cranked out arid little scores that were all formula, no inspiration. They presented it as music from the head rather than the heart, but the body part they actually employed was the colon. What Webern did was fascinating, but once he’d done it, what was the point of generating more of the same—“system” music to which individuality was alien? Composers who wanted to move forward with Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone system would have found much more success had they emulated Schoenberg’s other pupil, Alban Berg, who used 12-tone techniques to create vital, expressive, communicative music, unlike the junk produced by Webern’s academy-ensconced impersonators.
    At any rate, my argument with Lebrecht isn’t about Webern, whose influence is now nil (he still has a few imitators, but nobody pretends to care anymore). My complaint is about this foolish claim:

Scan the entire canon, Passacaglia to posthumously published piano pieces, and you will not find one weak work of Webern's, or one that fails immediately to proclaim its authorship. In the history of western music, that statement is true only of Beethoven and Wagner.

    That statement is most assuredly not true of Beethoven or Wagner. Has Stormin’ Norman ever heard Beethoven’s Musik zu einem Ritterballett, or Wagner’s Die Feen or Das Liebesverbot, or any number of other early or half-hearted scores by these composers? Face it: Beethoven and Wagner and Mozart and every other composer wrote a fair amount of derivative student trivia and uninspired junk. (Mendelssohn wrote his junk late in his career; Brahms wrote his early, but destroyed it all.) Why pretend they were all instant geniuses who sprang pristine from the virginal loins of Euterpe? Even the greatest music and the greatest musicians are real, fallible and human, and that’s what makes the flashes of brilliance so much more remarkable.
    On a topic related to my rant, David Hurwitz, America’s answer to England’s Norman Lebrecht (a description that Hurwitz would probaly find galling, considering his general dislike of Lebrecht’s work), has something important to say on the subject of musical cultists:

Excellence is the sworn enemy of the cult mentality in its musical manifestation, because one of the prime characteristics of this mindset is self-righteous anger on behalf of the object of worship. If everything that [conductor Jascha] Horenstein did had been exceptional and generally recognized as such, then he would not need a cult to support his claim to immortality. The music doesn’t matter. The quality of his conducting doesn’t matter. What matters is the satisfaction that cult members derive from belonging to the group, and the recordings are merely triggers that activate and reinforce the herd instinct.

    Read the rest here.

ME, IN FISHWRAP NEAR YOU

posted by James Reel

    This being Thursday, I’m splattered across the arts section of the Tucson Weekly. Elsewhere, too. Loose-canon columnist Tom Danehy recounts being lured to a Fourth Avenue restaurant for lunch with Emil Franzi, Chris Limberis, Renée Downing and me:

When James Reel invited me to lunch, I figured I had to go. Among many other things, James does the morning drive-time gig on KUAT radio, playing classical music and talking in a voice that sounds erudite and pimpish at the same time.

    You can find the whole sorry tale here. I must point out, though, that he misattributes one remark to me that was actually made by either Renée or Limbo. I frankly don’t know the difference between the Allman Brothers Band and B.B. King.
    Meanwhile, back in the arts section, I find myself actually enjoying Live Theatre Workshop’s production of Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers. This will surely demolish whatever little credibility I have as a intellectual. Also, I have good things to say about the new show at Top Hat:

What we've got here is Tom Dulack's Breaking Legs, a very funny playwright-meets-mobster production that opened last weekend at Top Hat Theatre Club. True, the show's success rides on how willing you are to buy into the standard comic mob tropes. But Dulack, director Tony Eckstat and the Top Hat cast manage to fold the Mafia clichés into well-paced entertainment as colorful and garlicky as the antipasto plates Angie keeps hauling in.

    The whole review awaits you here.

SLIPPED DISC

posted by James Reel

    Three new Marantz “Professional” CD players were installed in the control room last year, and one of them is now on the fritz. Somehow I feel handicapped having to work with only two players, even though I got along fine with two turntables back in the 1970s and early ’80s. And that was when recordings—specifically, LPs—were a lot more difficult to cue up, as we bounced and dragged the stylus across the delicate surface looking for just the right groove. There’s no reason I can’t get by with only two players, but I like to plan ahead. I have six hours worth of announcements in proper order on my computer screen shortly after my shift begins; I cue up two discs ahead, just in case something goes wrong with the next one up, or I get distracted by a phone call or a search for a fill piece. Take away one of the CD players, and I feel just a little less secure.
    And if you think I’m fussy about these things, let me introduce you to Bill Pitts.

DON'T CALL HIM MELLOW CELLO

posted by James Reel

    Harry, my cello teacher, called early yesterday afternoon to cancel this week’s lesson; he was frantically preparing to leave town for a week and a half. Fine, I told him; I’d fill the open cello slot on my schedule by reviewing Pieter Wispelwey’s new set of the Beethoven cello sonatas and variations on Channel Classics. Harry merely grunted. When pressed to elaborate, he groused about Wispelwey’s capricious interpretive choices, not to mention his tone. “He doesn’t even make it sound like a cello!” he complained. Then, with a laugh, “Our instrument has gone downhill since Jacqueline Du Pré bit the dust.”
    So I listened to Wispelwey’s two-disc set, a beautifully recorded SACD release, immediately heard what Harry was talking about, but failed to share his exasperation. Here’s the gist of the review I’ll be sending Strings magazine today:

    Pieter Wispelway’s new Beethoven survey won’t change anybody’s mind about this high-profile Dutch cellist. Indeed, the very same passages can illustrate the arguments of his detractors as well as his supporters. Do you believe Wispelwey belongs to the new “mannerist” group of players, tugging at phrasing and dynamics on whim rather than according to musical logic? Or do you believe he illuminates too-familiar scores with unexpected detail, surprising articulation and hairpin dynamic swells and fades? Whichever, here’s your evidence.
    Me, after years of preferring the refinement of the likes of Pierre Fournier, I find Wispelwey refreshing. Make no mistake: These aren’t “the” Beethoven sonatas, they’re Wispelwey’s Beethoven sonatas (although I don’t mean this to slight pianist Dejan Lazi’s expert partnership). Unless you just can’t stand Wispelwey’s rather wiry period-instrument tone (even though he’s playing a “modern” 1760 Guadagnini for this, his second Beethoven cycle), you should listen to this recording if only to reinforce your prejudices.

SITE-SEEING

posted by James Reel

    Alan Campbell, the morning (sometimes afternoon) man at KUAT-FM for nearly 10 years starting in the mid 1990s, stopped by this blog last week, e-mailed a hello and conveyed his regards to his former listeners. Since he retired, Alan has been more than a warm glow on an old vacuum tube; he’s one of the people who founded MUSIClassical.com, a very interesting site with way more features than I’ve ever had time to explore.
    There you’ll find, among other delights, lists galore of classical holiday pieces, nicknames of compositions, recommended recordings and much more; links to purveyors of music books, sheet music and video and audio recordings; and a connection to an online discussion group “for lovers of classical music, broadcasters, composers, musicians, publicists, retailers, listeners and promoters of independent classical music.” It’s billed as a “forum for ideas and dialog supporting the independent classical music industry. You may post articles, comments, charts, new choice classical recordings, releases of new classical compact discs, tours etc.”
    I check two of the site’s features daily. First, the almanac, a day-by-day listing of birthdays, death dates, first-performance anniversaries and the like. (There’s way more information here about justifiably obscure, long-dead singers than most people really need, considering the sketchier details provided for composers and instrumentalists, but who am I to criticize somebody’s private passion?) Second is the page of links to classical-music news items and features, including many pieces that slip right by the valuable ArtsJournal.com.
    That should get you started. Now explore the site on your own, but be prepared to linger a while.

HOW TO FAKE A CLASSICAL CONCERT REVIEW

posted by James Reel

    Hey, kids! A fresh concert season is upon us, and your daily newspaper needs you! Editors have finally gotten over the silly notion, prevalent from about 1975 to 1995, that newspapers should waste money and office space on full-time classical music critics. For 20 years they squandered their resources on deadwood critics who claimed that only they were qualified to write reviews because they’d spent their lives going to concerts on their own time, collecting classical recordings, reading as much as they could about classical music, and maybe even playing instruments or writing their own compositions. How foolish! Anybody can review a classical concert. After all, cub reporters are routinely shuffled from the court beat to cops to city council. Why waste money on a one-trick critic when you can send a low-paid sports agate clerk to a concert to do some real reporting, rather than that silly pontificating that nobody wants to read? (Well, maybe a few old farts constituting the newspaper’s traditional core readership might care, but they don’t count; to survive, today’s cutting-edge newspapers need to be attracting younger, poorly educated non-readers!)
    So you say you’ve never covered a classical concert, let alone attended one, but you’re being sent to opening night at the symphony and you’re expected to turn around a review in an hour? No problem! Just follow these five easy steps, and your editors will be thrilled!
    1. To fill at least half of those 10 gaping column-inches of space you’ve been awarded, plug in a lot of background on the music. Nothing technical—jargon and arcane concepts are fine for the sports section and business page, but you’re in the features section, right next to that hard-hitting back-to-school article on trends in teen piercings. Keep it light, anecdotal, and personality-oriented. And if you don’t have access to CD notes or Internet sources so you can copy stuff into the review before you go to the show, relax! You can always crib from the program notes at the concert.
    2. Mention how many people attended the concert. Body counts are very important to editors. Don’t worry about putting this into the context of attendance at other classical-music events in your town; you don’t have enough space for context.
    3. Be sure to describe the gestures of the conductor, the swaying and facial expressions of various musicians, and the couture of any female soloist. This adds color and drama to any review!
    4. Always use the word “sublime” in relation to anything by Mozart and Beethoven, and describe everything written since 1910 as “harshly dissonant,” unless you’re covering the annual Kenny G pops concert.
    5. Devote whatever remaining space you have to an account of the audience’s reaction to the performance. Why sweat over forming your own opinions when you can take your cue from the crowd?