Page Four
THE MICHIAN'J DAILY VAACA7l1lr
.", FI- ,II,' ' "' - "Sunday, March , Z1958
THE MUSIC REVIEWER
The "Call To Review" Produces Curious Group
Including Music Lit Students, Dilettantes and "Comp" Ticket Seekers
By DAVID KESSEL~-
CRITICISM of the arts, appear-}
ing in a widely circulated lo-
eal newspaper has become rea- V
sonably secure from serious pub-
lic appraisal. To be sure, an oc-
casional brave soul will disagree
via the "Letters to the Editor"
route, but usually the would-be
contributor is unfamiliar with
such devices and the critic gets
the best of the exchange.
After a time, the curious person
begins to wonder how these critics i a t,
or reviewers are recruited, where
they come from, where they go,
and who keeps them,
The answer to the first of these .
Is easy to discover. About twice af
year appearing on the editorial
page is a little box which says:
A meeting for Daily review-
ers will be held at 7:30 p.m.
Monday.
Those who have previously
reviewed for The Daily, and
those interested in reviewing
art, movies, music, books, andW
drama are Invited te attend. ...WOODWINDS
... 20,000 tiny filter traps"
This quickly leads to a people- deadlines, headlines, and free
filled room, stuffed to overflow- passes, this group is set free, un-
ing with more-or-less confident supervised, to review that which
individuals who have read books, is to be reviewed,
heard music, watched plays, taken The most remarkable observa-
(or taught) Music Literature, tion to be made about this state
strolled through art galleries, and of affairs is not that many of
now feel the "call" to review, these reviews are bad, but that
These aspiring reviewers can, with some of them are not.
their heightened perception, sense
that the time has come to divulge IN ORDER to avoid trouble, I
their superior appreciation and shall confine my remarks to the
evaluation of various art forms realm of musical reviewing, where
to the campus at large, the situation has been deterior-
After a trifling discussion about ating steadily.
An occasional well-turned
phrase pops out though, from time
to time, to brighten an otherwise
dreary picture.
For instance, Avo Somer, de-
scribed the Honneger Uturgique
Symphony as a "sort of hell-to-
heaven tour in three easy chap-
ters." Or Philip Benkard on Myra
Hess : "The three great B's of mu-
sic were a vehicle of triumph for
Dame Myra Hess last night as she
ran the gamut from the classic to
the romantic period."
But these elegant sentences are
lost amidst a variety of techniques
covering great voids in the re-
viewers' musical knowledge.
We are told after a particular-
ly poor performance of the Cleve-
land Symphony Orchestra in 1956
that the "strings showed true su-
periority," whatever that is. This
means a "mastery of forte and
piano playing" by these strings,
with "all the subtle variants be-
tween these two extreines."
Now, if a play reviewer would
say: "The actors had superior
voices both in loud and soft speak-
ing, and at all volumes in be-
tween," one might expect a deluge
of comment. But its musical
equivalent passes unnoticed,
IN THIS same review it is men-
tioned "the woodwinds, parti-
cularly the bassoon sounded par-
ticularly good." One is tempted to
add, "like a woodwind section
should." And then mention the
twenty thousand tiny filters which
keep woodwinds free of harmful
tars. This sort of review sounds
like an advertisement for the or-
chestra rather than a critical ap-
praisal.
The kindly reader magnani-
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Colins Shop
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Spur/s S/isp, Lover Leve
mously might assume the review-
er had had a bad night. But, he
was back on the "job" a few days
later when Herbert von Karajan
and the London Philharmonic
were at Hill Aud.
IT WOULD seem obvious the
least courtesy a writer could pay
a visiting artist is spelling cor-
rectly the artist's name. Von
Karajan's name appeared correct-
ly in front of the auditorium, in
news releases and in The Daily
and on each of several thousand
programs. But not in the review.
There, we find the mysterious
German "Von Karajon" named in
the headline, and four times in
the story,
"Every measure of every com-
position bore the mark of Von
K a r a j o n 's (sic) individuality
which was what enthralled the
audience." German scholars will
remember that "von" is never cap-
italized, but this fine point is lost
when, next morning, readers
wonder about a reviewer who can't
spell.
A few months later, we are told
via headline that "Rubenstein is
Powerful but Often Inconsistent."
This strange spelling of Artur
Rubinstein's name really caught
on, in grim tribute to the power
of the press. In several letters
critieizing the review, the mistake
wtas repeated,
A target of many critics'
shafts himself, David Kessel
now comments on the skill of
his fellow music reviewers.
Mr. Kessel has been a fre-
quent contributor to the Mag-
azine writing such assorted
features as Dormitory Living
at M.I.T., How to Travel by
Auto and a profile sketch of
Arturo Toscanini.
T HE "Rubenstein" reviewer then
wrote, sometime later, an es-
say for The Daily Magazine about
"how to review," and again had
the misfortune to mention "Ru-
benstein." This time the mistake
was caught by a musically in-
formed broom-pusher.
The reviewer here mainly criti-
cized Rubinstein's tendency to-
ward showy rather than artisti-
cally excellent p r o g r a m m i n g
which was a fairly accurate de-
scription, although expressed in a
rather petty way. Rubinstein had
struck a chord on the piano before
playing his first piece, it seems.
Note how well Albert Tsugawa,
reviewing Rubinstein a year ear-
lier, makes this point.
Rubinstein had played a piano
version of the Bach Chaconne
from the Second Partita for Un-
accompanied Violin, in an ar-
rangement by Busoni.
"The Bach-Busoni Chaconne
was transmuted into a warming-
up piece in a Lisztian hothouse by
a musically Germanized Italian;
and the result is a decibellic
jungle of pedal tones. Someone in
the process obliterated not only
the transparent structure of Bach,
but the tension that results when
a single violin attempts to play a
set of variations ..."
No mention of the artist's pos-
ture, aim waving, chord striking
bit a clear, eoneise, musical criti-
cism which is, after all, the point,
Unfortunately T s u g a w a also
spelled the pianist's name "Ru-
benstein," so he doesn't quite get
off free either.
REVIEWERS are usually inclined
to "play it safe" by writing a
good review although a consensus
of readers might indicate other-
wise. When the critics condemn
something, retribution is usually
swift.
Philip Benkard, criticizing a so-
. ,:
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