I read a lot of reviews. And I mean a lot. Not just reviews of concerts I’ve played in, but concerts by other orchestras, by string quartets, by new music ensembles, by pop stars, hip-hop collectives, theater productions, and all manner of other performances. It’s a weird tic I developed while spending eight years being paid to curate such stuff for ArtsJournal.com, that indispensable daily aggregator of arts news. I left ArtsJournal when I added Inside the Classics to my duties, but I’ve never gotten out of the habit of at least scanning every review I come across.
Without going too far down the road of negativity, I’ll just say that music criticism really isn’t what it used to be. Many critics today, battered from all sides by an unfriendly economy, increasingly twitchy musicians and the PR folks who work for them, and a wider American public that doesn’t really see any need for Expert Opinion on anything anymore, seem to have either decided to live on the path of least resistance (praising more or less every concert that isn’t a total debacle,) or lapsed into a perpetually cranky tone that implies that they are the last line of defense against the cultureless barbarians at the gate. It’s kind of sad, especially since those of us who make our living in the arts really do owe a debt of gratitude to the news organizations that still deign to cover us. (Yes, City Pages, I’m still looking at you. Cute head fake and all with having your theater critic write up a couple of blog posts about classical music right after I slammed you, but it’s been nothing but silence since May…)
Anyway. I bring all this up because this past weekend, the orchestra made our annual pilgrimage to Winona, Minnesota’s rather miraculous Minnesota Beethoven Festival, there to close out the summer for them with Osmo conducting the 4th and the 7th, which just happen to be my two favorite Beethoven symphonies. We’ve been doing this for three years running now, and while Winona is quite a haul from the Cities, I’ve always loved making the trip. The people who pack the middle school auditorium for our shows are always so excited to be there, and so gracious to us. They literally treat us like celebrities, and while that kind of unearned adulation normally makes me seriously uncomfortable, the folks in Winona are so sincere that I just want to hug them all.
Most years, after we play Winona, I find myself scanning a few reviews from southern Minnesota papers who sent reporters to the concert. They’re pretty much always unfailingly polite and full of praise for the home state’s biggest band, and almost always indistinguishable from the hundreds of other reviews I read every year. But this year, I’d noticed that there was a violinist from Eau Claire who was posting blog reviews of a number of the Beethoven Festival concerts. And that she could really write, not a skill that many musicians are known to possess. I wondered whether she’d be at our show.
She was, of course. And while I’m pretty much the antithesis of an emotional guy, I have to admit that I teared up while reading her description of the concert we played yesterday…
I’ll try to remember little bits and pieces to give a vague idea of what it was like, but honestly I was rendered rather speechless. There was power suffused with delicacy – extraordinary dynamic range – palpable commitment on the part of everyone onstage, from the strings to the brass to the woodwinds to Maestro Vanska – elegance – earthiness – charm – passion. Passion above all else. These musicians were so excited to share their love of the music with us, and the electricity in the hall proved that the audience was just as excited to hear it as the orchestra was to play it. It was such a special feeling to communicate with these extraordinary virtuosos in that intensely personal way. I wish I could tell you more than that – give you more details about what exactly I loved – but I really can’t. I was too carried away by the joy and power of the sound. There is nothing to say except this is the pinnacle of our art. This is why I love music. This is one of the greatest experiences a human being can have.
Wow. That’s just… that might be the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid in my 30 years of playing an instrument. Not to mention the most eloquent. I’m sort of speechless myself.
Emily wrote that she thought of approaching some of the MN Orchers she saw heading out after the concert, but was afraid that she’d either come across as hopelessly smitten or tongue-tied…
I’ll have to resort to thanking them online. Hopefully some member of the orchestra will read it and understand the profound awe and gratitude I’m trying to convey.
I read it, Emily, and you can bet I’ll make sure everyone else does, too, when we get back to work tomorrow morning. The awe and gratitude runs both ways – as lucky as you and others in the Upper Midwest might feel to have us around, we feel twice as lucky to have you. And please – keep writing. You’re astoundingly good at it.
Thanks for posting this. A remarkable review, indeed. Readers should see the entire document that you linked. I attended the Saturday night performance of the same program at Orchestra Hall, and it was also quite special and memorable for all the reasons she gave. I can’t think of a Beethoven concert I’ve been to in 35 years that made such an impression.
It was a remarkable review, and to be on the receiving end of it, no doubt heady. I do want to comment on something you wrote, though:
“…and a wider American public that doesn’t really see any need for Expert Opinion on anything anymore,”
I think the problem isn’t the lack of need or desire for an Expert Opinion. Rather, the Internet has made any uninformed idiot with a keyboard and a connection (which is about every idiot) willing to pronounce him/herself as an Expert, and render an opinion, which then get mixed in with the opinions of the vaguely informed, the somewhat informed and the real Expert. To me this combination of nearly unlimited access combined with a nearly unlimited platform leads to doubt as to the worth of any opinion out there. At least with the Experts of yore, you knew who they were, their credentials, and quite often their biases, so you could take them into consideration.
I would rather go back to the day where quite knowledgable people didn’t say much for fear of coming across less than informed, rather than the anonymous opinion overload that is out there now.
Well written again Sam! And now you’ve given me ammunition to back up my feelings about Beethoven’s 7th… my personal favorite, though I’ve always shied away from expressing it because people usually give me a look like ‘huh’?