I Got The Music In Me
Pardon me, I’m new around here. 
When Tom asked me if I would join in the cultural critical fray around here (based on this, mostly), I was… well, astonished; someone actually asking me to do the thing I’ve longed to do, for, like, ever. I grew up - literally - writing movie reviews (as Nora Ephron said, we actually have people who want to be film critics, these days), and it’s really almost all I ever wanted to do - watch movies, and write about them.
So I’ve chosen to inaugurate posting with a discussion of… classical music. And the nature of critical writing. Fun, eh?
Oh, come now, don’t give up on me yet.
I think music is hard to review. And if I didn’t, I could always turn to rock music criticism, which I think is often a triumph of questionable writing… or overuse of adjectives. Or both. No, seriously, I think the challenge in music criticism has to do with music’s.. disposability, it’s impermanence.
When you see a film or a television show, you can’t really say “I saw a better version of that in Lisbon.” There may be remakes of films, but often the original, and it’s update, are both available for viewing and comparison. (One obvious example right now is the endless, fascinating decision of Masterpiece Theater to air nearly every adaptation of every Jane Austen work ever made, as well as commissioning new versions of all her works.) The value of a given performance, of a style of direction, of a camera angle… these can be seen, compared, contrasted.
Theater, of course, somewhat upends this; you can say, “I saw such a marvelous performance by Patti LuPone in Gypsy the other day” (really, is there another actress one can see so clearly born to a part?)… but you will usually - especially in the multigenerational company I keep - find someone to say “ah, but you should have seen Angela Lansbury/Ethel Merman/Tyne Daly in the part. What a show!” It was better when Mary Martin was on Broadway. Or Chita Rivera. Or Jerry Orbach.
Yet still, with each production, a critic has a chance to both see it for itself, and for its historicity. You may never have seen The Merm, but you can hear her singing, watch her filmed performances, read the stories… and know something of her work, her approach. It’s not unknowable, ultimately; and it can inform a critic’s eye, and ear. Even with straight plays, there is often a record, a recording, a filming - to see the work develop over time. Even dance, really, is quite similar; as a dancer I not only feel comfortable talking about a work over time (even for performances I have only read about, or seen taped), but I know how it feels to move, to perform.
Music, though, is far more ephemeral, I find; I am, by nature and by raising, a pop music junkie. I was raised on the radio, and on the 3:05 single. The songs I love today are not necessarily the songs I will love forever (another reason why I have little use for rock crit - it seems leaden to try and weigh pop music down with the weight of too much interpretation and meaning… for the ages - it’s got a beat, and I can dance to it, is often good enough).
Then there’s Classical. And Opera.
Few things carry the baggage of pretension that classical music and opera have; it’s art for the best of us, not the rest of us, it often seems. You will, it is asserted, either take to opera upon first hearing it, or never fully appreciate its beauty. There is nothing that quite impresses others like the words “I went to the symphony” (well, possibly, it’s the crowd I hang out with… but you get the idea, I hope).
It’s hard though, for the entry level listener to know whether one is hearing greatness; if the orchestra you’re watching is indeed the best, the soloist a true genius, the work performed in quite so sublime a way as to shatter one’s perceptions. You cannot know, necessarily, who has performed this best, at what time, and in what place; a recording may not do the work justice. And it goes to the very nature of criticism to write about it - are you reviewing an impression of one evening, never to be repeated; or should you ground the work in its historic precedents, its life over time? What can you know about the orchestra, the performer, the conductor… and does it really inform the work being performed?
What, really, does a critic know?
If I tell you that last week, I went to the symphony, the New York Philharmonic to be precise, and that I was blown away… well, what does it mean? If I think the performance of Pinchas Zukerman on Elgar’s Violin Concerto was brilliant, what, really, do I know about it? I’ve never heard Zukerman before; I’ve never heard the Philharmonic play Elgar, before that night. Are they good at it? Are they lame at it? How do I know? If I know they’re good at Beethoven (or at least, I think so)… does that mean anything?
Or if I tell you that the horns sounded better on Copand’s Symphony #3 (the one with “Fanfare for the Common Man”) than on the Haydn symphony they played a couple of weeks ago, does that matter? How can one know? If I liked the concert… and Bernard Holland didn’t… who’s right?
This is the critic’s dilemma, I think; or the dilemma of criticism: when are we authoritative… and why? Who says we… you… I… really know what’s best, what works, what moves an audience? Do we know, really, only what moves us, as individuals… and then, why should that matter to anyone else? And really, given the nature of any performance piece - music, dance, theater… even film - are we reviewing more than a moment, a flicker, a breath…
If you’re looking to me to have the answer… I don’t. What I know is that I find art, especially performing art, fascinating, especially in the way it illuminated things about our culture, and by extension, about who we are. I love exploring this stuff. I’m really glad to be able to do it here. I hope you will be, too.
- Help Us Make Our Portable Computer Lab Musical
- Making Music Digital!
- Studying Life Using Natural Rhythm and Modern Technology
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December 30, 2008 at 7:40 pm
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