http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/feb/16/critics-notebook-tom-service
Just now, I have neither the time nor the inclination to tear this lamentable offering to pieces; readers will in any case be perfectly capable of doing that for themselves. However, I will say that, in addition to its ignorant inanity, this piece of 'journalism' is truly offensive to a good number of British orchestras and their players, whom the rest of us appreciate greatly. (And since when were we not part of Europe?)
9 comments:
Dear Mr Berry (fellow blogger),
I obviously disagree with both Tom Service's position and analysis, but I am quite interested in understanding what exactly is you bottom line here - if there is actually one, but maybe I just can't get your point.
I have quit "regular" journalism criticism precisely because I thought something in the essence of both terms, journalism and criticism, sounded more an more contradictory to me. However, when I started my own blog I chose among others Boulezian and Tom Service Guardian's blog for my blog list, because I thought Service, as number of other critics of english language, had the kind of freedom and personal involvment that lacks in the french critics community.
Well, almost everyday I could publish a link on le petit concertorialiste with the same title, leading to some ridiculous concert or disc review in the french online magazines. I would be almost happy to read something like Service's provocation (?) in one of those.
This particular paper is clearly too brief and undevelopped but still the issue is interesting : at least it seems to be the contrary of a journalistic logic : so I would sincerely appreciate it if you could explain what exactly is the so very stupid thing here.
Again, I deeply disagree with him and by the way, quite a lot of the most committed, intense or even dangerous playing I have observed at orchestral concerts were english made (I think about Salonen's Wozzeck last year or Davis and LSO's Scottish Symphony, or Jurowsky's Eroica and Pathetic symphonies.
One of the stupidest I've seen was someone who I shant name but you can guess, who was shocked that there were two Henzes on a database. Hundreds of Browns, Khans and Jones, too. When the main papers started online editions a few years ago, they seeemed to go out of their way to find the stupidest bloggers possible. The idea was to horrify readrs so much that they'd tell all their friends and circulate the offending article. The stupider the article, the more comments and attention. Luckily the Telegrapg cleaned up their act and now have Stephen Hough. What the mainstream press cannot accept is that there is no difference between "journalists" and bloggers per se, only the quality of the writing and informative content Several times the papers have lifted stories from us, which also says something.
Well, you know, there are many contenders for this slot. I sometimes like Service, but this one seemed specious, at best. I pass on to you another contender, pointed out by Soho the Dog: http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0211/Why-does-contemporary-classical-music-spurn-melody.
Sigh. If only they'd just listen. Really listen.
Dear Théo,
Sorry about the time taken to reply: I have been rather busy. First, many thanks for your splendid blog, so rare in that it really takes the time to give proper accounts of performance, and to explain its judgements. I can sympathise with your decision to stop writing ‘journalistically’: sad to say, there are very few, though a few there do remain, good musical writers for newspapers. There are space constraints etc., I know, but that is no such excuse for Service here, since this is simply a blog piece.
It seemed to me to sum up a great deal of what was worst about journalism. First and foremost, it manufactures some sort of controversy rather than reporting upon a situation. Presumably the intention is to gain readers rather than to say something worth saying. The whole piece seems to be based upon a piece of gossip from Sir Simon Rattle: a player had spoken to him, who spoke to our intrepid journalist… That is, if Rattle has not been misrepresented: it would not exactly be unusual for a journalist to have done so. Mentioning Rattle at all is at best irritating: ‘Aren’t I impressive? I spoke to Simon Rattle, and you didn’t…’.
There is also the matter of the great disrespect shown to a host of fine orchestras, both in London and elsewhere in the country. If Service thinks we are not ‘in Europe’, then he might benefit from some elementary history and geography lessons; I assume he meant, in that slightly quaint phrase, ‘on the Continent’, in which case he should have said so, or at least been corrected by a sub-editor.
Perhaps most fundamentally, there seems to be no understanding of what the role of a conductor might be. If, and I repeat if, the ‘final concert’ were no better than the ‘first rehearsal’, then it does not speak very highly of whomever it was who was conducting ‘a complex piece by Bartók’, if indeed any of this actually happened. It would hardly be the fault of the orchestra. It makes no sense whatsoever to say that ‘the goal in Berlin or Munich’ – strangely chosen cities, given that Service has just mentioned the Vienna Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Orchestra: again, perhaps he needs an atlas – ‘is to get to a place where the music is in the bones of the players; in Britain, the problem is getting further into the music than playing all of the notes in the right order.’ Quite apart from that being arrant, insulting nonsense to British orchestral players, it does not follow on from what he said about everything being accurate at the first rehearsal. Any conductor worth his salt would have used that as the basis for interpretation – and quite frankly, so would most orchestral players, even without a conductor.
Well, I'm sorry I had written a long answer and something failed after clicking the "post comment" button...
I'll take another chance latter, maybe, thanks for your answer anayway ç
I'm not sure how stupid it is. Clearly I don't have as much knowledge of the level of British orchestras as you do (or Tom Service), but from what I can hear on recordings and broadcasts, there are some things I can't deny. Chief of which is that I can't really tell the difference between the sounds of the different orchestras (the sole exception perhaps being the Philharmonia, which seems to me to play with a warmer, less brash sound than the others). The Concertgebouw, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Czech Philharmonic etc, all seem to have a distinctive manners of playing. In each case, these orchestras had the advantage of being the indisputable reigning orchestra in each of their respective cities. And with that privilege came the advantages of the ability to pick the musicians that best suited their styles, less turnover among music directors, and more (often far more) rehearsal time.
If one compares the LSO to a roughly contemporaneous orchestras like the Concertgebouw, the differences become clear. In a period ninety years, the Concertgebouw had three directors: Mengelberg, Van Beinum and Haitink. They had a far less strenuous work regimen, and they had the greatest hall in the world. It's unfair to compare their advantages to the LSO, but I don't think it can be denied that the greater privileges accorded them a more distinctive interpretive profile.
Far too late I know - I was rereading the Parsifal review as I've just been - but I feel I ought to comment. What an extraordinary lapse by a normally excellent blogger. I mean you, Boulezian. Tom Service has done a lot of good work both in print and in his pre-performance interviews at the QEH; this article wasn't particularly good but only a raving lunatic would seriously call it the most stupid article on music ever.
It's been a while since your post, but I think I've found a late challenger in this category:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/radio-1-dj-kissy-sell-out-classical-music-is-irrelevant-to-todays-youth-2282561.html
Andrew, thank you: yes, we have a serious contender there. I especially like the comment, apparently without irony: 'My knowledge of classical music may seem amateurish in comparison to Stephen Fry'...
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